ro^-3 


1- 


STUDIES   IN  THE   MARVELLOUS 


BENJAMIN   P.  KURTZ 

Assistant  Professor  of  English 
in  ike  University  of  California 


T.  FISHER  UNWIN  THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON:   ADELPHI  TERRACE  BERKELEY 

LEIPSIC.   INSELSTRASSE  lo  ,g,0 

1910 


STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  PUBLICATIONS 


STUDIES   IN  THE    MARVELLOUS 


BENJAMIN   P.  KURTZ 

Assistant  Professor  of  English 
in  the  Uni'versity  of  California 


T.  FISHER   UNWIN  THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON:    ADELPHI  TERRACE  BERKELEY 

LEIPSIC:    INSELSTRASSE  zo 
igio 


C.3 


PREFACE. 


This  book  is  the  expansion  of  a  thesis  of  the  same  title 
submitted  in  1905  to  the  English  Department  of  the  University 
of  California  in  partial  fulfillment  of  the  requirements  for  the 
degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy.  I  wish  gratefully  to  acknowl- 
edge the  constant  help  afforded  me  in  the  preparation  of  these 
papers  by  Professor  Charles  Mills  Gayley.  In  no  way  is  he  to 
be  held  responsible  for  the  views  here  expressed;  but  hardly 
could  they  have  taken  shape  without  his  friendly  and  unfailing 
criticism. 

Bebkeley,  March,  1909. 


CONTENTS. 

Chapter  Page 

Introduction  3 

I.  Greek  Criticism  of  Fiction  and  Marvel 14 

11.  The  Psychology  of  Wonder 52 

III,  Wonder  in  Primitive  Mind,  Custom,  and  Belief 93 

IV.  Wonder  in  Central  Australian  Belief  and  Story 135 

Conclusion 171 


Tavra  tolwv  lort  ixiv  ^v/xwavTa  iK  ravTov  Trd6ov<;,  koI  Trpos  tovtoi<s 
Irepa  ^vpia,  /cat  toutwv  Irt  davfjiaaroTcpa'  8ia  8c  ;(porou  Tr\rjOo<;,  to.  fikv 
al'Twv  aTri(7J3r]K€,  to.  Si,  Buairapixeva  elpyjTaL  X^P'-'*  ^/ctttrra  drr  a\Xi]\(DV.  o 
8'  icTTi  iraat  tovtol<;  uiTtov  to  ira.Oo'i,  ovSets  (.iprjKC.  vvv  8c  S»y  Acktcov.  tis 
yap  T7)i'  Tov  ySacnAeoJS  d7ro8ei^iv  irphpu  prjdev, — Plato:  PoUticus,  269B. 

' '  All  these  stories,  and  ten  thousand  others  which  are  still  more  wonder- 
ful, have  a  common  origin ;  many  of  them  have  been  lost  in  the  lapse  of  ages, 
or  are  repeated  only  in  a  disconnected  form;  but  the  origin  of  them  is  what 
no  one  has  told,  and  may  as  well  be  told  now;  for  the  tale  is  suited  to  throw 
light  on  the  nature  of  the  king. ' ' 

Tr.,  Benjamin  Jowett,  Dialogues  of  Plato,  iv,  467. 

".  .  .  dieser  (der  Mythos)  als  eine  vom  Volke  selbst  geschaffene 
Welt  von  Phantasiebildern  blieb  im  Alterthum  immer  der  Hauptinhalt  der 
Dichtung  auch  in  der  Zeit  der  Verstandesbildung,  nur  dass  nun  das  poetische 
Bild  von  der  prosaischen  Wirklichkeit  unterschieden  wurde. ' ' 

A.  Boeckh,  Encyk.  u.  Method,  d.  Philol.  Wisschftn., 
2d  ed.,   Leipzig   1886,   p.    649. 

" .  .  .  But  little  by  little,  in  what  seemed  the  most  spontaneous  fiction, 
a  more  comprehensive  study  of  the  sources  of  poetry  and  romance  begins  to 
disclose  a  cause  for  each  fancy,  an  education  that  has  led  up  to  each  train 
of  thought,  a  store  of  inherited  materials  from  out  of  which  each  province 
of  the  poet 's  land  has  been  shaped,  and  built  over,  and  peopled. ' ' 

E.  B.  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  i,  273. 


STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 


INTRODUCTION. 

The  marvellous  in  Eomance — Its  profusion,  and  recurrent 
character — Its  neglect  by  literary  criticism — Aristotle — Desul- 
tory and  fragmentary  nature  of  wonder-criticism  after 
Aristotle — Data  furnished  by  the  ethnologists — The  opportunity 
for  a  criticism  of  the  marvellous — Purpose  and  plan  of  the 
present  work — History  of  the  usage  of  the  term  ' '  marvellous ' ' 
— as  an  intensive — as  denoting  the  supernatural — in  other 
languages — Suggestiveness  of  these  usages. 

Throughout  the  course  of  romance  one  element  occurs 
continually, — the  marvellous.  In  the  literature  of  every  age  its 
presence  is  provocative  of  pleasure  or  criticism  upon  the  part  of 
the  reading  or  learned  public.  In  the  myth  and  legend  of  the 
barbarian  it  multiplies  under  religious  and  faithful  sanction. 
With  the  rise  of  a  critical  philosophy  it  is  subjected  to  searching 
analysis ;  but  no  philosophy  or  science  of  a  few  can  check  its  ad- 
vance, for  it  lives  perennially  in  the  hearts  and  in  the  super- 
stitions of  the  ignorant  masses.  When  a  self-conscious  epic  art 
develops,  the  adoption  and  handling  of  the  prodigious  become 
subjects  of  acrimonious  dispute.^  The  European  ]\[iddle  Ages  con- 
tributed to  occidental  marvel  a  renovation,  and  a  new  impulse 
along  both  sacred  and  profane  lines.  Chivalry,  that  romantic 
institution  of  the  wonderful,  belonged,  as  Professor  Woodberry 
has  well  said,  "to  a  world  of  marvel,  where  the  unloiown, 
even  in  geography,  was  a  large  constituent  element,  and  magic, 
superstition,  and  devildom  were  so  rife  as  to  be  almost  parts  of 
the  human  mind."-   Medieval  Metrical  Romance  perpetuated  all 


1  Cf.  Ker,  Epic  and  Eomance,  1897,  pp.  34,  39. 

2G.  E.  Woodberry,  in  McClure's  Magazine,  April,   1905.      Vol.  XXIV, 
p.  621.     (Art.  Cervantes.) 


4  STUDIES  IX  THE  MAEVELLOUS. 

this  ill  a  literary  form;  and,  after  the  skepticism  of  the  Age  of 
Reason  hail  dwindled,  the  same  themes  lived  again  in  the  modern 
romanticist's  keen  delight  in  wonder  and  amplification.^  The 
mood  of  marvel  was  making  its  way  back  into  English  literature 
of  the  eighteenth  century  even  while  Robert  Anderson,  travelling 
through  Scotch  scenes  in  "moralizing  mood,"  was  at  pains  to 
asperse  it  thus  in  a  letter  to  the  wonder-loving  Bishop  of 
Dromore:  "I  surveyed  for  the  first  time  the  scenery  of  the 
Border  Ballads,  and  visited  the  ancient  castles  of  the  Border 
chiefs,  the  dens  of  thieves  and  robbers.  I  sat  on  the  ruins  of 
Hermitage,  in  a  moralizing  rather  than  a  marvellous  mood,  so 
that  I  saw  neither  Redcap  nor  Shellycoat;  and  indeed  the 
creatures  of  popular  superstition  live  only  in  legends,  and  no 
longer  haunt  these  peaceful  valleys. '  '* 

While  reading  this  letter  from  Robert  Anderson,  it  occurred 
to  me  that  there  is  an  opportunity  for  research  into  the  treatment 
of  the  marvellous  in  literature.  For,  while  most  of  the  principles 
and  elements  of  literary  art  enumerated  by  Aristotle  in  the  Poetics 
have  received  a  systematic  and  comparative  illustration  from  the 
hands  of  such  modern  critics  as  Brunetiere,  Texte,  Beljame,  Paris, 
and  Gautier,  the  important  literary  ingredient  here  called  the 
marvellous,  which  is  mentioned  repeatedly  in  the  twenty-fourth 
and  twenty-fifth  chapters  of  the  Poetics,  has  not  as  yet  been 
exploited  by  any  modern  literary  critic  of  the  scientific  school. 
It  is  possible  to  go  even  further,  and  say  that  nothing  of  compre- 
hensive scope  has  been  written  upon  the  wonderful  by  any  literary 
student  of  any  school  of  criticism  since  Aristotle  in  a  fragmentary 
way  marked  out  its  scope  in  epic  and  tragedy,  and  incidentally 
declared  its  justification  under  the  broader  category  of  poetic 
truth.  Opinions  of  the  moment,  to  be  sure,  mere  asides  from  other 
investigations,  have  often  been  thrown  out,  from  Plato  or  Horace 
down ;  and  the  ancients  occasionally  made  collections  of  wonder- 
stories,  such  as  the  famous  pseudo- Aristotelian  HEPI  0ATMAS- 
IHN  AKOTSMATHN.  Photius  (Vol.  3,  Col.  413)  quaintly 
notices  one  of  these  latter  as  consisting  of  four  books,  one  each  on 


3  Cf.   Hurd,   Letters   on   Chivalry  and   Eomancc,   London    1762,   p.   319. 
(No.  X.) 

*  Nichols,  lUufttrations,  etc.,  London   1817-58,  VII,  187. 


INTEODUCTION.  5 

the  following  subjects :  of  incredible  fiction,  of  incredible  stories 
about  demons,  of  incredible  tales  of  souls  appearing  after  death, 
of  incredible  things  of  nature.  But  these  had  no  more  purpose  of 
literary  criticism  than  did  the  moralistic  and  philosophic  objec- 
tions of  the  Greek  philosophers  who  descended  upon  Homer  for 
employing  incredible  and  impious  tales  about  the  gods.  The  self- 
conscious  epic  art  of  the  Italian  Renaissance,  of  Ariosto  and 
Tasso,  drew  in  its  wake  an  acrimonious  and  voluminous  disputa- 
tion upon  the  place  of  the  prodigious  in  epic  composition;  but 
the  criticism  was  always  dogmatic,  a  priori,  and  partisan — never 
comparative  and  inductive.  The  same  is  true  of  the  English 
echoes  of  that  continental  battle  of  the  books.  D  'Avenant,  Hurd, 
Pope,  Addison,  and  others,  contributed  their  not  infrequent,  but 
always  tentative,  paragraphs  to  the  question  of  the  proper  place 
of  wonder  in  the  various  literary  types.  Fielding,  in  one  of  his 
asides  in  Tom  Jones,  discoursed  wittily  upon  the  proper  use  of 
wonder  in  his  own  art.  There  is  an  extremely  sketchy  essay  by 
Yardley  upon  The  Supernatural  in  Bomantic  Fiction,^  which 
stands  very  lonely  in  the  midst  of  modern  criticism  along  other 
lines.  Now  and  then  have  appeared  short  essays  upon  the  habits 
of  particular  authors  or  periods  in  dealing  wnth  the  wonderful, 
such  as  Dj^er's  essay  upon  the  folk-lore  in  Shakespeare,"  or 
Bodmer's  antiquated  monograph  upon  the  angels  in  Paradise 
Lost.''  A  collection  of  medieval  wonders  in  the  sixth  volume  of 
the  Studien  zur  vergleichenden  Literaturgeschichte  suggests  the 
sort  of  preliminary  collection  of  data  which  must  precede  any 
methodical  inquiry  upon  the  subject.  A  classification  of  the 
wonders  in  French  literature  of  the  age  of  Louis  XIV  has  been 
made  by  Delaporte.®  The  most  encouraging  work  that  has  yet 
appeared  is  Reitzenstein 's  Hellenistische  Wundererzdhlungen.^ 
In  this  monograph,  undertaken  primarily  as  a  study  in  theological 
criticism,  the  author  argues  for  the  derivation  of  much  of  the 


5  London  1880. 

6  Dyer,  T.  F.,  FolJc-Lore  of  Shalcespeare,  New  York  1884. 

7  Bodmer,  Kritische  Abhandlung  von  dem   Wunderharen  in   der  Poesie, 
Zurich  1740. 

8  P.  V.  Delaporte,  Du  Merveilleux  dans  la  Littcraiure  Fran(;aise  sous  le 
Begne  de  Louis  XIV.,  Paris  1891. 

9  Eeitzenstein,  Hellenistische  Wundererzdhlungen,  Leipzig,  1906. 


6  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

wonder-element  in  early  Christian  literature  from  Hellenistic 
sources;  and  incidentally  he  distinguishes  two  types  of  separate 
origin,  the  Hellenistic  wonder  tale  (or  aretalogy,  as  he  calls  it), 
and  the  Hellenistic  romance. 

But  if  the  marvellous  has  failed  to  receive  a  satisfactory  treat- 
ment at  the  hands  of  literary  students,  in  another  direction  it  has 
been  investigated  with  surprising  fulness.  The  students  of  eth- 
nology and  folk-lore  have,  with  purposes  quite  other  than  those 
of  literary'  criticism,  brought  together,  and  partially  classified,  a 
vast  number  of  marvels  drawn  from  primitive  and  popular 
religious  belief,  custom,  and  superstition.  It  is  hardly  necessary 
to  cite  the  long  roster  of  those  who  in  all  parts  of  the  learned 
world  are  following  in  the  steps  of  Lord  Avebury,  Spencer,  Tylor, 
Frazer,  and  Berenger-Feraud.  By  the  systematic  and  devoted 
efforts  of  this  great  band  of  modern  humanists,  there  has  been 
brought  together  a  mass  of  observations  and  explanations  of  the 
marvellous  element  in  belief  and  story,  which,  though  quite  inde- 
pendent of  any  literary  interpretation,  nevertheless  is  by  all 
odds  the  most  considerable  achievement  in  the  study  of  the 
wonderful,  not  only  since  the  time  of  Aristotle,  but  in  all  time. 
Such  works,  to  mention  only  English  examples,  as  The  Origins 
of  Civilization,  Primitive  Culture,  The  Golden  Bough,  Myth, 
Ritual  and  Religion,  or  The  Legend  of  Perseus,  are  as  monu- 
mental to  the  success  attending  the  application  of  the  methods 
of  scientific  research  to  spiritual  matters  as  they  are  unique  in 
the  history  of  humanism. 

Dr.  Tylor,  speaking  in  the  light  of  his  long  investigations, 
has  said,  in  the  first  volume  of  his  Primitive  Culture,  that  "little 
by  little,  in  what  seemed  the  most  spontaneous  fiction,  a  more 
comprehensive  study  of  the  sources  of  poetry  and  romance  begins 
to  disclose  a  cause  for  each  fancy,  an  education  that  has  led  up 
to  each  train  of  thought,  a  store  of  inherited  materials  from  out 
of  which  each  province  of  the  poet's  land  has  been  shaped,  and 
built  over,  and  peopled."  Than  this  statement,  based  upon  the 
scientific  accumulations  of  Tylor  and  his  fellow-students,  there 
could  be  nothing  more  encouraging  to  the  literary  student  who 
might  wish  to  take  up  Aristotle's  observations  and  expand  them 
into  a  coherent  presentation  of  the  function  and  development  of 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

the  marvellous  in  literature.  Here,  ready  to  his  hand,  is  a  body 
of  data  and  principles,  which  needs  only  an  application  of  the 
literary  point  of  view,  and  the  addition  of  further  data,  strictly 
literary,  which  did  not  enter  into  the  view  of  the  ethnologists,  to 
be  reduced  to  a  history  and  theory  of  the  appearance,  function, 
and  development  of  the  literary  use  of  the  wonderful.  Here  are 
the  keys  to  a  literary  criticism  of  the  marvellous  that  will  show 
the  relations  between  the  various  cases  or  details  of  wonder  before 
they  were  incorporated  in  literary  beginnings,  during  the  proc- 
esses of  that  incorporation,  and  through  their  subsequent  stages 
of  literary  development.  By  following  successively  the  constantly 
changing  relations  of  the  wonder-element  in  literature  to  other 
elements,  and  to  the  general  principles,  of  literary  art  and 
evolution;  by  observing  its  concomitant  and  relative  positions 
in  the  various  literary  types  at  the  different  periods  of  their 
development ;  by  determining  the  evolution  of  particular  marvels 
as  they  are  influenced  or  determined  by  parallel  changes  in  the 
technique  and  consciousness  of  the  literary  artist ;  by  explicating 
the  sometimes  obvious,  the  sometimes  subtle,  influence  of  con- 
temporary philosophic  or  scientific  criticism  of  the  marvellous 
upon  the  vitality  and  popularity  of  wonder  in  purely  literary 
usage;  by  generalizations  concerning  the  inspiration  offered  by 
wonder  to  the  individual  artist  at  various  stages  of  his  own  or 
the  race's  development, — by  such  employments  as  these  that 
peculiarly  basic  element  in  literary  interest,  which,  as  Aristotle 
racily  observed,  persuades  good  stoiy-tellers,  consciously  or  un- 
consciously, to  add  something  wonderful  to  their  recitals,  would 
receive  the  consistent  treatment  and  illustration  obviously  de- 
manded by  its  prime,  but  slightly  recognized,  importance. 

The  studies  included  in  this  book  represent  a  series  of  pre- 
liminary attempts  to  supply  the  need  of  a  literary  criticism  of 
the  marvellous,  and  to  make  use,  for  this  purpose,  of  the  data 
collected  by  the  ethnologists.  Each  one  of  these  attempts  has 
been  undertaken  separately,  with  a  view  to  approaching  the  sub- 
ject from  various  points  of  vantage ;  and  so  strictly  have  the  facts 
been  followed  that  the  postponement  of  conclusions  to  a  regular 
position   behind   the   data   has   often   enjoined   a   rather   bulkj' 


8  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEVELLOUS. 

handling  of  the  argument.  Whatever  relations  there  may  be 
between  the  studies  is  the  result  of  identity  of  the  object  under 
consideration  in  each  case — not  of  any  concatenated  theory  of  the 
rise  of  the  marvellous  and  its  development  into  literary  form. 
Inevitably  many  such  relations  have  developed :  the  conclusions 
based  upon  them  have  been  rigorously  deferred  to  the  close  of 
every  chapter,  and  are  collected  at  the  end  of  the  volume. 

The  methods  adopted,  or  rather  the  points  of  view,  were 
arrived  at  simply.  The  first  study  endeavors  to  gain  some 
orientation  toward  the  subject  by  tracing  in  detail  the  history  of 
what  Greek  literary  criticism  had  to  say  on  the  use  of  the  mar- 
vellous. Thus  the  warrant  in  previous  criticism  for  the  present 
undertaking  can  be  determined,  while  at  the  same  time  the 
various  moments  and  trends  in  the  development  of  Greek  criti- 
cism, themselves  considered  as  stages  in  the  development  of  the 
marvellous  in  literature,  are  revealed.  The  next  study  is  an  effort 
toward  the  attainment  of  some  general  psychological  criteria 
of  wonder.  It  is  believed  that  the  subjective  nature  of  the 
wonderful  makes  such  a  standard  absolutely  imperative.  This 
subjective  aspect  of  the  problem  is  frankly  conceded  at  the  out- 
set. These  essays  are  very  intentionally  studies  in  subjective 
phenomena.  It  is  not  conceived  that  the  subjective  character  of 
the  work  can  be  extended  as  an  objection  to  its  value  or  prac- 
ticability by  those  who  themselves  have  indulged  in  researches 
into  the  tragic,  the  comic,  the  satiric,  the  beautiful,  and  the 
like,  in  literature ;  nor  yet  by  those  who  have  studied  the  nature 
and  development  of  either  art  or  belief.  The  third  chapter 
begins  to  take  up  the  ethnological  evidence.  It  regards  the 
general  fields  of  primitive  belief  and  custom  in  order  to  determine 
what  in  them  may  be  the  general  forces  and  conditions  relative  to 
wonder  and  the  wonderful.  In  the  final  study,  a  particular 
primitive  people,  the  Central  Australians,  are  brought  before  the 
reader;  and,  after  a  discussion  of  their  cultural  conditions,  their 
actual  legends,  as  reported  by  investigators  who  lived  among 
them  for  a  long  time,  are  contemplated  and  resolved  into  elements 
which  do  possess,  or  do  not  possess,  wonder.  So  far  as  is  possible, 
by  piecing  together  evidence  and  inference,  these  elements  are 


INTBODUCTION.  9 

discussed  in  view  of  their  relations  to  any  inceptive  literary 
treatment  they  have  undergone  in  the  course  of  being  handed 
down  in  tradition  and  legend.  In  a  word,  this  last  study  of  the 
present  collection  is  an  investigation  of  the  first,  actual,  positive 
step  taken  by  what  are  nowadays  called  marvels,  out  of  their 
beginnings  in  belief  and  custom,  and  into  their  modification  at 
the  hands  of  the  earliest  type  of  narrative  art.  It  is  the  first  stage 
of  the  story-marvel. 

In  the  course  of  these  studies  one  question  will  continually 
recur :  What  is  the  exact  meaning  of  the  word  marvellous  ?  As 
a  preliminary  consideration  of  this  difficulty,  a  brief  notice  of  the 
use  and  definition  of  the  word  may  be  conveniently  inserted  at 
this  place.  It  will  be  seen,  moreover,  that  the  history  of  the  use 
and  meaning  of  the  word  bears  very  directly  on  the  entire 
problem  before  us. 

Upon  the  part  of  one  of  the  least  superstitious  minds  of  the 
nineteenth  century  there  is  a  striking  use  of  the  word  marvellous. 
In  the  last  essay  of  the  last  book  published  by  Herbert  Spencer 
this  passage  occurs :  ' '  Concerning  the  multitudes  of  remarkable 
relations  among  lines  and  among  spaces  very  few  ever  ask — Why 
are  they  so?  Perhaps  the  question  may  in  later  years  be  raised, 
as  it  has  been  in  myself,  by  some  of  the  more  conspicuously 
marvellous  truths  now  grouped  under  the  title  of  'the  Geometry 
of  Position.'  Many  of  these  are  so  astounding  that  but  for  the 
presence  of  ocular  proof  they  would  be  incredible ;  and  by  their 
marvellousness,  as  well  as  by  their  beauty,  they  serve,  in  some 
minds  at  least,  to  raise  the  unanswerable  question — How  came 
there  to  exist  among  the  parts  of  this  seemingly-structureless 
vacancy  we  call  Space,  these  strange  relations?  How  does  it 
happen  that  the  blank  form  of  things  presents  us  with  truths  as 
incomprehensible  as  do  the  things  it  contains  ?"^° 

The  way  in  which  the  word  '  *  marvellous ' '  is  used  in  this  quota- 
tion offers  a  suggestive  starting  point  for  the  discussion  of  the 
general  use  of  the  substantive  and  its  derivatives.  On  the  one 
hand,  it  will  be  noted  that  these  space-relations,  which  are  pro- 


10  H.  Spencer,  Facts  and  Comments,  New  York  1902,  pp.  290-291.     The 
italics  are  mine. 


10  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABVELLOUS. 

nonnced  marvellous,  are  by  ocular  proof  actual  realities.  There 
is  about  them  nothing  that  is  strange  to  the  order  of  nature. 
There  is  no  supernatural  intrusion.  They  are  extraordinary  only 
to  a  limited  observation ;  strange  only  to  the  mind  unaccustomed 
to  waiting  upon  them.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  note  of 
sublimity  in  the  emotion  with  which  they  are  regarded.  Now  the 
application  of  the  adjective  ''marvellous"  to  such  associations 
illustrates  a  very  general  use  of  the  term,  and  one  that  it  has 
always  exercised, — the  designation  of  the  extraordinary  that  is 
within  the  realm  of  possibility,  but  has  about  it  an  air  of  sub- 
limity. At  present  this  connotation  belongs  to  the  literary  or 
learned  use  of  the  word.  It  is  a  heavier  word  than  the  Saxon 
equivalent,  "wonder," — "a  little  more  wonderful  than  wonder- 
ful." In  Spencer's  sentence,  "wonderful"  cannot  be  substituted 
for  "marvellous"  without  a  loss  of  emphasis. 

But,  as  a  variation  of  this  usage,  the  word,  still  applied  to  the- 
possible,  is  often  employed  in  the  familiar  fashion  of  a  mere 
intensive  to  express  conditions,  the  extraordinary  character  of 
which  is  comparatively  low  and  insignificant  in  degree.  In 
Middle  English,  merveil,  marveyle  (or  any  other  of  its  dozen  or- 
more  spellings)  was  used  oftener  in  this  more  familiar  way  than 
in  the  more  sublime  connotation.  Extraordinary  adventures, 
were  always  dubbed  marvellous,  as : 

Lat  no  clerk  haue  cause  or  diligence 

To  wryte  of  yow  a  storie  of  swich  meruaille 

As  of  Grisildia  pacient  and  kynde,ii 

or, 

He  made  so  grete  merueyll  of  armea,  that  the  Frensmen  durst  not  com' 
forth  for  fere  of  hym.12 

Distinguished  service  of  any  kind  might  be  termed  a  matter- 

of  marvel.    Thus : 

Saturnus  after  his  exile  fro  Crete  cam  in  great  perile 

Into  the  londes  of  Itaile, 

And  there  he  did  great  merveile. 

For  he  founde  of  his  own  wit 

The  first  crafte  of  ploughtilling." 

The  extreme  familiarity  of  the  word  as  a  mere  intensive,  is. 

illustrated  by 


11  Chaucer,  C.  T.,  II  E,  1185. 
i2Caxt.  S.  of  Aym.,  p.  79. 
"Gower,  II,  168. 


INTRODUCTION.  11 

pe  Saxons  .  .  .  broughte  wij?  hem  Hengistus  his  daughter,  a  wonderful 
fairs  mayde,  mervellious  of  kynde  and  wonder  sightly  for  men  to  byholde.i* 

In  the  verb  form  this  extreme  familiarity  is  especially  common  in 
Middle  English  romances.  "He  merueyled  him,"  or  the  like,  is 
a  part  of  the  stock  phraseology  of  the  old  tale-tellers,  and  sug- 
gests nothing  more  than  amazement,  or  wonder ;  thus : 

Whan  Reynawde  sawe  so  grete  nombre  of  folke  eomynge  oute  of  the 
wode,  he  was  sore  merveylled.is 

With  the  Elizabethans,  too,  the  more  familiar  usage  is  that 
oftener  met  with. 

A  mad-man  that  haunts  the  Fayre,  doe  you  not  know  him?  it's  marueU 
he  has  not  more  followers,  after  his  ragged  heeles.i^ 

Shakespeare,  in  the  great  majority  of  cases,  as  may  easily  be  seen 
by  consulting  Dr.  Schmidt's  Shakespeare-Lexicon,  employs  the 
word  familiarly,  while  he  reserves  wonder  and  wonderful  for 
cases  of  rarer  moment. 

Good  faith,  this  same  young  sober-blooded  boy  doth  not  love  me;  nor  a 
man  cannot  make  him  laugh;  but  that's  no  marvel,  he  drinks  no  wine.iT 

With  the  dramatist,  too,  the  adverbial  use,  signifying  "very," 
"extraordinarily,"  is  common.  "Marvellous  searching  wine," 
"marvellous  convenient  place,"  "marvellous  hairy  about  the 
face,"  and  the  like,  are  to  be  found  in  every  play.  On  the  other 
hand,  English  of  the  present  has  lost  this  ready,  French  use 
of  the  word,  but  inherits  a  looseness  of  application,  on  the  part 
of  the  hyperbolically  minded  at  least,  which  almost  takes  its  place 
in  colloquial  life. 

The  extraordinary  that  is  still  within  the  realm  of  possibility, 
if  not  of  probability,  that  posits  nothing  that  is  contrary  to  the 
law  of  nature,  is  thus,  either  in  its  familiar  cases  or  in  its  sub- 
limer  effects,  termed  the  marvellous.  But  there  is  another  and 
equally  well-established  use  of  the  word  marvel,  which  connotes 
that  which  is  distinctly  supernatural  or  closely  associated  with 
the  vague  realms  of  unknown  possibilities.  It  has  always  desig- 
nated the  impossible,  the  incredible,  the  miraculous.  Komance 
and  legend  are  full  of  this  use : 


i4Trevisa,  V,   267-9. 

iBCaxt.  S.  of  Aym.,  p.  137. 

18  Nightingale  (of  Trouble-all),  in  B.  Jonson's  Barthol.  Fair,  III,  2. 

IT  King  Henry  IV,  B,  IV,  3,  96. 


12  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

Now  yc,  J^at  wvllyS  wondorcs  her,  hearkened  maruayle. 
How  I>at  chykl  with  a  foiuies  fere  Dede  batayle,i8 

or, 

Forth  pe  meruaile  of  the  greal  be  don.io 

Often  it  is  employed  thus  to  designate  the  magical  machines  of 
sorcery : 

pis  solere  was  be  sorsry  selcuthely  fouudid, 
Made  for  a  niervall  to  mecne  with  engine; 
Twenti  tamed  oliphants  turned  it  aboute.20 

Especially  rich  in  examples  of  the  application  of  the  word  to 
the  miraculous  is  the  old  literature  of  the  Church.  The  Golden 
Legend,  for  instance,  knows  many  such.  The  dissipation  of 
marvels  in  which  the  saints,  say  St.  Brandon  or  St.  ]\Iargaret, 
indulged,  puts  many  a  secular  romance  to  shame.  Eight  centuries 
later  Shakespeare  is  not  nearly  so  fond  of  this  use  of  the  term. 
Schmidt  cites  only  a  few  cases.-^  The  revival  of  romance  in  the 
eighteenth  century  saw  the  entrance  of  this  usage  into  a  new 
favor,  to  which  Fanny  Burney  bore  witness,  somewhat  sarcas- 
tically, when  she  wrote  in  her  Preface  to  Evelina:  "Let  me, 
therefore,  prepare  for  disappointment  those  who,  in  the  perusal 
of  these  sheets,  entertain  the  gentle  expectation  of  being  trans- 
ported to  the  fantastic  regions  of  Romance,  where  Fiction  is 
colored  by  all  the  gay  tints  of  luxurious  Imagination,  where 
reason  is  an  outcast,  and  where  the  sublimity  of  the  Marvellous 
rejects  all  aid  from  sober  Probability. ' ' 

No  illustration  is  needed  of  the  present  use  of  the  word  in 
this  specific  sense  of  the  supernatural. 

It  may  now  be  remarked  with  considerable  emphasis  that 
these  uses  of  the  terra  marvellous  are  not  peculiar  to  the  English 
language.  The  same  word  in  the  Latin  languages  and  its  equiva- 
lent in  the  German  tongues  are  found,  peculiarly  enough,  in 
each  case  to  carry  the  same  variety  of  connotation.  The  familiar 
and  the  more  sublime  uses,  the  popular  and  more  learned 
"fringes"  of  association,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  connotation 
of  the  merely  unusual  or  of  the  distinctly  supernatural,  of  the 


IS  Oclon.,  903,  Sarr. 
10  Arth.  a.  Merl,  4293.  Kolb. 
20  TVars  of  Alex.,  5291.  Ashmol. 
2i  Hamlet,  I,  2,  195. 


INTRODUCTION.  13 

naturally  extraordinary  or  of  the  impossible  and  incredible,  on 
the  other  hand,  are  all  to  be  found  in  the  Romance  and  Germanic 
languages  alike.  Littre,  for  example,  defines  merveille  as  ' '  Chose 
qui  cause  de  1 'admiration " ;  such,  e.g.,  as  the  Seven  Wonders  of 
the  World.  Again,  in  the  next  subdivision  of  his  definition,  we 
read  "  Familierement.  Ce  n'est  pas  grande  merveille,  ou,  par 
ironic,  voila  une  belle  merveille,  ou,  elliptiquement,  belle  mer- 
veille, belles  merveilles,  se  dit  pour  rabaisser  une  chose,  une 
action  que  quelqu'un  veut  faire  passir  pour  admirable."  The 
connotation  of  the  supernatural  is  referred  to  thus:  "Chose  qui, 
excitant  retonnement,  parait  depasser  les  forces  de  la  nature"; 
and  under  merveillenx  he  writes:  " L 'intervention  d'etres  sur- 
naturels  comme  dieux,  anges,  demons,  genies,  fees,  dans  les 
poemes  et  autres  ouvrages  d 'imagination.  "- 

Here,  then,  is  an  interesting  state  of  affairs.  Quite  univers- 
ally the  civilized  languages  seem  to  unite  in  attributing  to  their 
respective  equivalents  of  the  word  wonder,  or  marvel,  a  similar 
set  of  variations  in  meaning.  In  each  case  these  variations  run 
from  the  sublimely  intensive  to  the  familiar,  and  from  the  super- 
natural to  the  unusual  but  possible.  Such  a  verbal  fact  as  this, 
with  its  hint  of  a  mental  trait  common  to  the  race,  might, 
a  priori,  seem  rich  in  suggestion;  and  it  carries  us  naturally 
forward  to  an  inquiry  into  the  mental  states  and  experiences 
symbolized  in  these  equivalent  words.  It  may  be  that  such  an 
investigation  will  bring  to  us  a  realization  of  the  way  in  which  the 
mind,  receiving  and  working  over  the  observations  of  the  senses, 
has  come,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  to  apply  to  two  sets  of 
phenomena,  supposedly  widely  different  in  origin,  and  even 
diametrically  opposed,  a  single  term,  which  it  uses  with  equal 
facility  for  the  familiar  and  the  prodigious.  Does  the  history  of 
a  word  here,  as  is  the  case  with  other  words  and  other  subjects, 
contain  some  vague  but  suggestive  testimony  as  to  the  origin 
and  nature  of  the  metaphysical  conception  ?-3  In  the  second 
chapter  we  shall  recur  to  this  question. 


22  For  similar  usage  in  other  languages  it  is  only  necessary  to  turn  to 
the  dictionaries,  s.  v.  Wxmdcr  in  German;  maraviqUa  in  Italian;  miror, 
minis,  admirabiUs,  in  Latin;  tfan/xdfw,  ^aO^a,    etc.,   in  Greek. 

23  Compare  below,  p.  92.  On  the  differentiation  of  wonderful  and  ?)!t7r- 
vellous,  see  below,  p.  75. 


CHAPTER    I. 

GREEK    CRITICISM    OF    FICTION    AND    MARVEL. 

Outline  of  method — The  philosophical  doubt:  (a)  the 
earlier  expostulation  with  myth;  (b)  Pindar  and  the  'Charis 
Doctrine';  (c)  Xenophanes;  (d)  Empedocles;  (e)  Plato — 
Philosophical  attempts  to  explain  the  marvel  in  myth:  (a)  the 
allegorists;  (b)  Euhemerism — The  beginnings  of  literary  criti- 
cism proper:  (a)  Aristotle;  (b)  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus ; 
(c)  'Demetrius';  (d)  Plutarch;  (e)  'Longinus' — Minor  phil- 
osophers, rhetoricians,  etc. — Conclusion :    eight  general  points. 

To  Greek  philosophy  the  presence  of  the  marvellous  in  Homer 
and  in  Greek  mythology  in  general  was  a  cause  of  constant  worry. 
From  Xenophanes  to  Simplicius  the  philosophic  line  was  haunted 
by  the  unquiet  spirit  of  an  inability  to  acquiesce  in  the  Homeric 
airiOava.  All  other  elements  of  the  epic  were  accepted  with  a 
religious  enthusiasm  and  implicit  faith.  Indeed,  everything,  from 
the  ideal  conduct  of  government  to  the  proper  way  of  turning  a 
horse,^  might  be,  and  was,  by  many  an  early  'saint'  or  later 
sophist,  deduced  from  the  Homeric  rule;  but  from  Xenophanes 
down,  philosophers  and  the  sons  of  philosophers,  nay  the  edu- 
cated class  at  large,  found  their  piety  forever  disturbed  by  the 
airCdava.  Along  with  the  blind  and  errant  struggle  toward  a 
right  adjustment  of  the  Homeric  fictions  to  life  and  literature, 
this  restless  doubt  takes  its  way  from  the  palmiest  age  of  Greek 
thought,  through  checkered  centuries,  to  the  closing  of  the  schools 
by  Justinian.  Like  some  new  stream  striving  to  find  its  way 
through  obstructions  to  a  clear  and  open  course,  and  making 
trial  of  each  turn  and  twist,  now  this  depression  and  again  that, 
so  the  Greek  persuasion  that  all  was  not  right  with  the  marvellous 
and  impious  stories  of  the  ancient  bard  makes  many  a  turn  and 
counter  before  it  discovers  the  only  possible  adjustment, — a 
literary  criticism  that  will,  in  marking  out  the  peculiar  territory 
of  the  literature  of  power,  provide  therein  for  the  proper  use 
and  place  of  the  wonderful  and  impossible. 


1  See  Xenophon  's  satirical  remarks  in  the  Banquet,  §  iv. 


GBEEK  CRITICISM  OF  FICTION  AND  MAEVEL.  15 

For  such  a  solution  the  search  was  not  only  often  misdirected ; 
it  was  also  unsystematic.  In  the  whole  course  of  discussion  the 
problem  was  never  exhaustively  stated,  never  categorically  in- 
vestigated. Throughout  the  discussion  the  marvellous  was  seldom 
separated  from  the  broader  category  of  fiction.  Furthermore, 
problems  of  literary  justification  of  the  use  of  fiction,  and  so  of 
the  marvellous,  were  attacked  as  problems  in  ethical  and  histor- 
ical justification.  In  the  mass  of  the  resulting  confusion  it  is 
not  strange  that  the  simple,  impartial  question,  ''What  has 
been  the  evolution  of  the  literary  use,  especially  in  the  older 
poets,  of  the  untrue?"  w^as  preceded  by  the  biased  question, 
' '  How  can  we  make  the  old  and  impious  poetic  usage  harmonize 
with  our  present  standards  of  truth  and  piety?"  The  ancient 
critic  argued  from  two  incompatible  premises, — that  the  older 
poets  always  spoke  truthfully  and  piously,  and  that  the  critic's 
own  vision  was  always  true  and  pious.  When  particular  cases 
revealed  the  contradiction  in  these  premises  the  critic  had  either 
to  deny  the  universality  of  the  first  premise,  or  confess  the  error 
of  his  own  deepest  intuition,  or  gloss  the  premises  into  harmony. 
At  first  he  was  surprised  into  a  denial  of  tradition ;  later  he 
was  scared  into  apologetics  and  confusion,  lest  the  quaking 
ground  of  truth  be  destroj^ed  under  his  feet.  In  that  confusion 
the  marvellous  as  such,  i.e.,  as  differentiated  from  fiction,  was 
mentioned  casually  rather  than  categorically.  Often  the  notice 
was  fragmentary, — incidental  to  a  discussion  of  truth  in  general. 
Often  it  occurred  as  a  mere  illustration  of  a  theme.  Often  it 
was  merely  tentative, — a  wonder  at  a  wonder,  or  a  '  When-I-was-a- 
child-I-believed-as-a-child  '-statement,  as  when  Philostratus  says : 
Hat?  /j.€v  yap  cov  en  iiriarevov  toZ?  roiovTOfi ^  kul  Kare/xvOo- 
Xoyet,  fie  rj  tltOtj  'y^apL€VTQ)'i  avra  eTraSovcra  Kai  Ti  Kal  KXaiovaa 
CTT  ivioa  avTcov^  fxeipuKiov  Be  jevofievo^;  ovk  ajSaaaviaTco^  at^drjv 
')(^pT]vai  TrpoaSe^eaOaL  ravTU.^ 

But  from  the  formless  mass  of  these  notices  the  account  of 
Greek  criticism  of  the  marvellous  must  be  patched  together. 
Some  men  indeed,  Plato  and  the  rest,  made  a  great  hue  and  cry 
over  the  fictions  of  the  poet ;  and  so  came  a  fine  quarrelling  back 
and  forth  between  the  poet  and  sage, — though  to  be  sure  the  sage, 


Philostratus,  Heroic  Dialogue,  §668    (ed.,  Kayser-Teubner) . 


16  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAIiVELLOJJS. 

being  after  all  the,  more  irritable  of  the  two,  blew  the  louder  in 
that  cacophony.  It  will  be  convenient  first  to  gather  the  notices 
from  this  source;  and  an  examination  of  Xenophanes,  Era- 
pedocles,  and  Plato  will  give  us  a  fair  idea  of  the  general  nature 
of  the  problem  of  fiction  and  the  marvellous  in  literature  as  it 
confronted  the  early  philosophers.  In  the  course  of  the  whole 
matter,  however,  Greek  intelligence,  proving  itself  not  very 
different  from  that  of  a  modern  apologist,  found,  of  course,  a 
ready  compromise  in  allegorical  interpretation.  Anaxagoras,  or 
was  it  Theagenes  of  Rhegium^,  first  began  this  sin  to  cover  a  sin, 
this  lie  to  habilitate  a  lie;  and  each  lie  begot  successive  lies  in 
the  most  approved  fashion  of  such  theological  vagaries,  until 
Alexandria  was  full  of  the  useless  spawn,  which  ceased  not  even 
with  Hypatia.  The  long  and  futile  tale  of  this  attempt  at  adjust- 
ment by  means  of  the  allegory  may  be  sufficiently  illustrated  by 
gathering  the  loci  from  Anaxagoras  and  the  earlier  school,  who 
began  it  all,  from  Plato  who  deprecated  it,  and  from  Maximus 
Tyrius,  Porphyry,  and  Julian,  who  may  serve  as  examples  of  the 
Neoplatonic  devotion  to  this,  the  most  palpable  of  expedients. 
After  these  Euhemerus  and  his  followers  must  be  briefly  men- 
tioned. In  the  fourth  place,  Aristotle,  Plutarch,  and  Longinus, 
with  two  or  three  of  lesser  name,  will  form  another  class, — the 
most  important  of  all,  since  they  were  happy  enough  to  come 
nearest  to  a  final  and  correct  adjustment  of  the  matter.  Finally, 
passing  away  from  philosophy  proper,  that  other  wearisome  line 
of  criticism,  the  Alexandrian  and  Byzantine,  must  be  glanced  at. 
Hermogenes,  Apthonius,  Theon,  and  Photius  will  serve  to  illus- 
trate this  class. 

Such  they  are — philosophers,  sophists,  and  scientists,  theo- 
logians and  rhetoricians — all  haunted  by  this  flaw  in  the  epics, — 
TO,  airiOava.  They  all  took  up  the  search  for  a  solution ;  and, 
because  each  sort  answered  in  a  characteristic  fashion,  the  above 
classification  of  their  answers  has  been  deemed  more  convenient 
to  a  presentation  of  the  unsystematic  mass  of  criticism  than 
would  be  a  scheme  based  strictly  upon  chronological  sequence. 

To  begin,  then,  with  the  philosophical  doubt,  and  the  quarrel 
which  came  therefrom  between  poet  and  sage !    Xenophanes,  the 


3  See  below,  pp.  31-32. 


GREEK  CRITICISM  OF  FICTION  AND  MARVEL.  17 

Eleatic  of  the  sixth  century  before  Christ,  stands  out  as  the  first 
to  make  much  of  the  philosophic  objection  to  m}i;h  and  marvel 
in  Homer.      But  before  him  there  had  been  grumblings.      The 
gradual  separation  of  Greek  philosophy  and  religion  from  their 
combination  in  myth,  and  their  differentiation  one  from  another, 
was  marked  first  of  all  by  an  ethical  attack  upon  the  blasphemous 
deeds  and  characters  attributed  to  the  gods.    It  is  important  to 
insist  that  this  first  attack  was  not,  primarily,  an  attack  directed 
by  love  of  fact  against  the  marvellous  elements  in  myths;  but 
rather  a  moral  expostulation  with  those  circumstances,  marvel- 
lous and  otherwise,  of  Greek  story,  that  ill  harmonized  with  a 
pure  and  sublime  conception  of  diety.    The  marvel  was  morally,      + 
rather  than  rationally,  impossible.    In  place  of  such  disgraceful 
stories  as  that  of  Ares  and  Aphrodite,  or  those  of  the  amours  of 
even  the  highest  gods ;  in  place  of  the  boastings  of  Zeus,  the  thefts 
of  Hermes,  or  the  insatiate  war-god 's  cries  on  the  field  of  Ilium,— 
a  new  and  less  anthropomorphic  idea  of  the  divinities  early  began 
to  make  its  way.    Solon  and  Theogonis,  in  the  sixth  and  seventh 
centuries,  are  said  to  have  renounced  the  fabulous  myths  of 
Homer  and  Hesiod,  and  to  have  anticipated  the  philosophers 
proper  by  setting  up  a  system  which  rested  on  ethical  and  meta- 
physical principles.''    Alcmaeon,  who  flourished  in  the  middle  of 
the  sixth  century  and  was  a  pupil  of  Pythagoras,  maintains  in 
the  fragment  of  his  treatise   (said  to  be  the  first)   on  natural 
philosophy  {(pvaiKovXoryov)  preserved  by  Diogenes  Laertius,  that 
"about  things  invisible,  and  things  mortal,  the  gods  alone  have  a 
certain  knowledge ;  but  men  may  form  conjectures. '  '^  Here  indeed 
is  a  piece  of  early  skepticism,  on  the  part  of  a  philosopher,  which, 
though  it  may  not  contain  a  direct  criticism  of  the  marvel-mjths, 
yet  indicates  a  fecund  ground  for  the  growth  of  such  observation. 
Heraclitus,  too,  at  the  close  of  the  same  century,  recognized  the 
limits  of  human  knowledge  when  he  declared  that  the  people  did 
not  know  the  real  nature  of  the  gods  and  heroes."     This  is  that 

4  Egger,  Hist.  Crit.  Grec,  2d  eil.,  p.  92. 

^  Uepl  tQ>v  a<t>avlwv,  irepl  tCjv  dvtiTwv  cracp-qveiav  fiiv  Oiol  (xovri    us  8'  avOpwirois 
T€KiJ.aip€<Teai.—Diog.  L,  VIII,  83;  Diels,  Fraffm.  Vorsokr.,  Frg.  I. 

^Kal  TO(s  dyd\p.a(Ti  di  TovrioiaLv  iGx°vT<^i-  okoTov  €[  ris  Ufwiffi.  \6(rx'7>'ew)tTO  <oJ/ 
TL  yivihcTKwv  eeovs  ovd'  i^puas  oI'tiv^s  elaiy — Diels,  Fragm.   Vorsokr,  Frao-    V 
Cf.  Frag.  CXXVIII.  ,         r.        • 


18  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABVELLOUS. 

same  philosopher  whom  Diogenes  reports  as  having  said  that 
Plomer  and  Arehiloehus  should  have  been  driven  from  the  games, 
apparently  because  their  learning  did  not,  according  to  Ilera- 
clitus,  inform  the  mind  of  the  one,  true,  all-ruling  ideaJ 

But  these  early  grumblings  of  law-givers  and  philosophers  are 
shared  by  a  man  of  quite  another  stamp, — the  lyric  poet,  Pindar. 
"Pindare  lui-meme,  ce  lyrique  si  enthousiaste,  Pindare,  qui 
definit  la  sagesse  une  science  innee  (<7o<^o9  6  ttoXXo.  elBoo^;  (f)va) , 
c'est-a-dire  ime  science  donnee  a  I'ame  par  la  faveur  du  ciel, 
Pindare  neanmoins  n'est  pas  exempt  de  doutes  sur  les  dieux  de 
rOlympe. "^  "Verily,"  cries  the  poet,  "many  things  are  won- 
drous, and  haply  tales  decked  out  with  cunning  fables  beyond  the 
truth  make  false  men's  speech  concerning  them.  For  Charis, 
who  maketh  all  things  sweet  for  mortal  men,  by  lending  honour 
unto  such  maketh  oft  the  unbelievable  thing  to  be  believed; 
but  the  days  that  follow  after  are  the  wisest  witnesses.  Meet 
it  is  for  a  man  that  concerning  gods  he  speak  honourably;  for 
the  reproach  is  less."*  And  then  the  ode  continues  by  substi- 
tuting for  the  old  disgraceful  story  of  Pelops  a  new  version 
more  flattering  to  the  honour  of  the  gods.  Such  a  performance 
as  this,^°  is,  in  its  subject  at  least,  if  not  in  its  beauty,  quite  a 
part  of  the  philosophical  grumble.  In  the  doctrine  of  Charis, 
however,  Pindar  is  centuries  ahead  of  his  time.  This  doctrine, 
though  it  breathes  something  of  the  rationalistic  air  of  our 
philosophers,  and  is  advanced  more  as  an  accusation  than  as  a 
defense  of  the  fictions  of  the  poet,  contains,  nevertheless,  the  first 
suggestion  of  the  proper  attitude  of  literary  criticism  toward 
the  use  of  the  marvellous  in  literature.  This  is  not  the  ethical 
attitude  of  the  natural  philosopher;  it  is  the  aesthetic  attitude 
of  the  poet.  Charis,  beauty,  says  Pindar,  beauty  of  presenta- 
tion, lends  belief  to  the  unbelievable,  makes  the  impossible  pos- 
sible. He  is  not  yet  ready  to  say  that  Charis  renders  the 
marvellous  legitimate  to  the  hand  of  the  poet:  it  only  makes 
possible  a  deception  which  must  be  guarded  against,  and  to  the 


7Diog.  L.,  IX,  I. 

8  Egger,  Hixt.  Crit.  Grec,  p.  92. 

9  0.  I.,  42  ff.,  Tr.,  E.  Myers,  Odes  of  Pindar,  London  1899,  p.  4. 

10  For  another  of  the  same  kind,  see  0.  IX,  35  ff. 


GBEEK  CRITICISM  OF  FICTION  AND  MARVEL.  19 

nature  of  which  "the  days  that  follow  are  the  wisest  witnesses." 
In  another  passage  the  same  point  of  view  is  occupied  with  regard 
to  the  fame  of  Odysseus;  and  there,  since  the  impious  applica- 
s  tion  of  unworthy  characters  to  the  gods  is  absent,  the  tone  is 
somewhat  less  philosophical  and  more  purely  aesthetic.  The 
passage  occurs  in  Nem.  VII,  20ff:  "Now  I  have  suspicion  that 
the  fame  of  Odysseus  is  become  greater  than  his  toils,  through 
the  sweet  lays  that  Homer  sang;  for  over  the  feigning  of  his 
winged  craft  something  of  majesty  abideth,  and  the  excellence 
of  his  skill  persuadeth  us  to  his  fables  unaware.  "^^  The  criti- 
cism of  the  untrue  and  unbelievable  in  literature,  which  is 
here  shadowed  forth  in  what  may,  for  convenience  sake,  be 
called  the  '  Charis  Doctrine, '  comes  thus  as  a  suggestion  from  the 
days  long  before  literary  criticism  grew  to  a  separate  and  con- 
scious discipline.  For  our  purpose,  it  is,  perhaps,  the  most 
notable  locus  to  be  found  before  Aristotle. 

Literature  is  indeed  a  fragment  of  fragments.  One  realizes 
that  with  peculiar  vividness  as  he  turns  the  pages  of  Diels^-  and 
Karsten.^3  j^  ^.j^g  century  that  intervened  between  the  years 
when  Thales  was  starting  a  physical  philosophy  in  place  of  the 
old  mythical  cosmology,  and  the  days  of  the  Samian  Pythagoras^* 
and  Xenophanes  the  Eleatic,  many  an  animadversion  must  have 
been  directed  against  the  fabulous  theology  of  Homer  and 
Hesiod.i^  Yet  from  all  those  years  our  literary  remains  are  so 
meagre  that  it  is  not  until  Xenophanes  is  reached  that  the 
mumblings  of  the  time,  caught  in  the  references  noted  in  the 
previous  paragraph,  break  into  clear  and  unmistakable  speech. 
With  him  the  ethical  objection  takes  the  form  of  a  definite  and 
reiterated  charge  of  anthropomorphism  against  Homer  and 
Hesiod.  Homer  and  Hesiod,  he  says,  have  attributed  to  the  gods 
everything  that  by  men  is  held  disgraceful  and  blameworthy,— 


iiMyers,  Odes  of  Pindar,  p.  127. 

12  H.  Diels,  Die  Fragmente  der  Vorsolratiker,  Berlin  1903. 

13  Karsten,  Philosophonnn  Grcrcorum  Veterum  Reliqui(e,  Amstclodami 
1830-8.  For  a  convenient  English  edition,  see  Fairbanks,  A.,  The  First 
Philosophers  of  Greece,  London  1898. 

i-t  For  Pythagoras'  criticism,  see  Diog.  L.,  VIII,  19. 
15  6'/".,  e.g.,  Hecata'us  (Herod.  II,  143).   See  Gomperz,  T.,  Greek  Thinkers, 
tr.,  Magnus-Berry,  Scribners  1905,  sub.  Hecatceus. 


20  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABVELLOUS. 

theft,  deception,  and  adultery.^"  Men  think  the  gods  were  born 
as  men  were  born,  and  that  they  have  form,  countenance,  and 
habit  such  as  mortals  have.^^  And  if  animals  had  hands  where- 
with to  fashion  images,  as  men  have  done,  they  would  give  to  the 
gods  animal  forms  like  their  owti  ;  and  the  gods  of  horses  would 
have  the  shapes  of  horses,  those  of  oxen  the  shape  of  oxen.^^  But, 
in  truth,  he  observes,  there  is  but  one  supreme  God ;  and  He  is 
like  mortals  in  neither  form  nor  mind.^"  There  could  be  no  clearer 
charge  against  the  poets  and  popular  belief — hardly  a  completer 
statement  of  Xenophanes'  own  conception  of  the  sublimity  of  the 
deity — than  is  conveyed  in  observations  of  this  kind. 

For  a  criticism  of  the  marvellous  in  myth,  such  ethical  objec- 
tions to  the  vulgar  anthropomorphism  of  Homeric  story  are 
obviously  more  than  a  fertile  field.  They  actually  include,  as  a 
part  of  the  wider  moral  view  which  is  concerned  with  all  im- 
proprieties of  deific  character,  the  particular  cases  the  impro- 
priety of  which  is  traceable  to  foolish  exaggerations  or  impossible 
fictions.  The  marvellous  is  by  its  very  nature  part  and  parcel  of 
the  ethical  irrationalism  against  which  Xenophanes  and  his  suc- 
cessors lift  their  voices.  Indeed,  in  the  twenty-first  fragment, 
Xenophanes  distinctly  mentions  certain  marvels,  such  as  the 
battles  of  Titans,  Giants,  and  Centaurs,  which  he  contemptuously 
calls  fictions  of  the  ancients  (TrXda/xara  roiv  irporepcov)  and 
would  exclude  from  the  tales  told  at  feasts  for  the  entertain- 


'*  Jldm-a  Ofo'is  a.vidy)Kav  "Ofi.r]p6s  d'  'UaioSds  re 

6ffaa  Trap   avdpu)Troi<riv  dvddea  Kal  ipbyoi  icrrl^ 

Kal  irXtiffT   i4>dtf^a.vT0  deCiv  i6fp.i(TTta  epya, 

kX^itthv,  fioi-x^vtiv  re  Kal  aW-^\ovi  diraTeveiv. 

— Karsten,  op.  cit.,  I.Frg.  7. 
"  'AXXa  fipoTol  SoK^vffi  deovi  ytwaa-dai — 

Tr)v  (T(f>tTip-r)v  iadfjTa  t    ix^'-^  pjop<t>-fiv  re  S^fias  re. 


-Karsten  I,  Frg.  5. 


'*  'AXX'   efroi    X«'P<^^  V  f'X'"'  P^^^   V^  X^j-res, 
^  ypiij/ai  x^^P^'^'^'^  **^  ep7*  reXeiv  &irep  Ai/dpes, 
twiroi  lUv  6'  iirvoiffi,  ^6es  S4  rt  ^ovfflv  onoToi, 
Kal  re  Oewv  Id^ai  iypa<t)Ov  Kal  ffu/xar    iirolovv 
Toiavd  ,  ol6i>  wep  Kal  avrol  S^fxa^  elxov  Sfwiov- 

"  VAi  debs  fv  re  Oeoiai  Kal  dvOpunroicri  p-^yiaroi, 
oire  5^^ai  Ovr^rolaiv  opx)Lio%  oUre   vb-qp-a. 


—Karsten  I,  Frg.  6. 
— Karsten  I,  Frg.  1. 


GEEEK  CRITICISM  OF  FICTION  AND  MARVEL.  21 

ment  of  the  company.^"  But  the  conclusion  of  the  fragment 
(^Oecov  8e  Trpofirjdeirjv  alev^  etc.)  shows  that  the  objection  to  these 
marvels  was  still  ethical, — such  battles  were  poor  witnesses  of 
the  justice  of  the  gods. 

Literary  criticism  is  being  trundled  by  philosophy.  But  it  is 
interesting  to  observe  that  this  early  promise  of  a  literary 
criticism  occurs  partly  in  the  form  of  a  judgment  against  the 
marvellous  and  unbelievable  character  of  much  of  the  earliest 
literature.  Such  a  circumstance  at  least  gives  a  notable  genealogy 
to  any  criticism  which  intends  to  investigate  the  use  of  the 
wonderful  in  literature. 

Empedocles,  teaching  the  persistence  of  all  things,  and  that 
birth  and  death  are  only  changes  in  the  round,  puts  love  in  the 
midst  as  the  dynamic  principle,  and  says  that  men  call  it  Delight, 
or  Aphrodite :  TrjOocrvvrjv  /caXeoyre?  iTrcovvfMov  ^8'  'A<f)po8iTT]v.*^ 
From  the  four  elements  and  their  combinations  spring  all  things, 
trees  and  men  and  women  and  animals,  birds  and  fish,  and  the 
gods  themselves,  long-living  and  richest  in  honor.^-  These  four 
elements  men  call  Zeus,  Hera,  Aidoneus  and  Nestis.-^  In  the 
beginning,  parts  of  animals  sprang  from  the  earth  :  ' '  many  heads 
sprouted  up  without  necks,  and  naked  arms  went  wandering 
forlorn  of  shoulders,  and  solitary  eyes  were  straying  destitute  of 
foreheads."-*  These  parts,  wandering  about,  came  together  in 
haphazard  fashion,  whence  all  sorts  of  strange  forms, — double- 
faced,  double-breasted,  man-like  before  and  ox-like  behind,  or  the 
bodies  of  men  with  the  head  of  cattle.-^  And  of  the  making  of 
men  and  women,  of  the  conflict  of  love  and  strife  in  forming  all 
these  and  the  universe  in  general,  many  more  examples  might 
be  drawn  from  Empedocles'  IIEPI  $Y2Efi2.  Throughout  the 
fragments   of  this   work    (Diels   enumerates   one   hundred   and 


*"  OtjTi  fidxcLS  SUTreiv  Tit'tii'ojv  ov8i  TiyavTiiji' 
ovdi  Tt  KevTavpwv^  irXafffiara  tQv  irpoT^pojv, 
ij  (TTcio'tas,  0X€56i'as  toFs  ov5^v  xPV^^^  tveari- 
Oewv   5k   TrpojUTj^e^Tj;'    aliv  «xf'  oi'yo-ST)v.  — Karsten  I,  Frg.  21. 

21  Diels,  Frg.  17. 

22  7b.,  Frg.  21. 

23  Ih.,  Frg.  6. 

24  ih.,  Frg.  57,  Tr.,  SjTnomls,  The  Greek  Poets,  Vol.  I,  Ch.  VII. 

25  lb.,  Frg.  61. 


22  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEVELLOUS. 

eleven)  is  evident  the  rationalizing  tendency  illustrated  in  the 
quotations  above.  "With  something  of  allegory,  as  in  the  ease  of 
the  Four  Elements  just  noted,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  theory, 
physical  and  metaphysical,  which  replaces  the  old  fabulous  cos- 
mology. It  is  especially  interesting  to  observe  at  what  pains  he 
is  to  account  for  the  marvellous  mixed-forms  of  legend  and 
tradition. 

But  this  rationalizing  tendency,  in  which  he  is  quite  at  one 
with  the  early  natural  philosophers,  illustrates  but  one  side  of 
the  character  of  this  strangest  of  men.  If  this  were  his  only  side, 
it  would  perhaps  be  more  proper  to  deal  with  him  in  company 
with  the  allegorists.  Those  other  and  more  interesting  aspects  of 
the  man,  by  virtue  of  which  he  stands  out  from  the  shadows  of 
the  past  as  a  romantic  figure  crowned  with  fillets  and  luxuriant 
garlands,  walking  in  majestic  purple  through  "the  great  city  hard 
by  the  yellow  stream  of  Acragas" — as  a  reveller  in  mysticism 
and  magic,  whom  Gorgias  often  saw  at  his  secret  rites — as  a 
thaumaturgical  pretender,  half -charlatan  and  self-confessed 
god, — those  are  the  characters  of  the  man  built  forth  in  his 
KA0APMOI.  Here,  indeed,  between  the  two  aspects  of  the  man, 
is  a  strange  contradiction.  As  Rohde  puts  it:  "Empedokles 
vereinigt  in  sich  in  eigenthiimlicher  Weise  die  niicliternsten 
Bestrebungen  einer  nach  Kraften  rationellen  Naturforschung 
mit  ganz  irrationalem  Glauben  und  theologischer  Speculation. 
Bisweilen  wirkt  ein  wissenschaftlicher  Trieb  auch  bis  in 
den  Bereich  seines  Glaubens  hiniiber.  Zumeist  aber  stehen  in 
seiner  Vorstellungswelt  Theologie  und  Naturwissenschaft  un- 
verbunden  neben  einander. "-"  Symonds  has  hit  off  this  con- 
tradictory character  of  the  man  to  still  better  effect.  There  are 
men,  as  he  says,  "in  whom  two  natures  cross — the  poet  and  the 
philosopher,  the  mountebank  and  the  seer,  the  divine  and  the 
fortune-teller,  the  rigorous  analyst  and  the  retailer  of  old  wives' 
tales.  But  none  have  equalled  Empedocles,  in  whose  capacious 
idiosyncrasy  the  most  opposite  qualities  found  ample  room  for 
co-existence,  who  sincerely  claimed  the  supernatural  faculties 
which  Paracelsus  must  have  only  half  believed,  and  who  lived 
at  a  time  when  poetry  and  fact  were  indistinguishably  mingled. 


26  Rohde,  E.,  Psyche,  Leipzig  1903,  II,  174-175. 


GREEK  CRITICISM  OF  FICTION  AND  MARVEL.  23 

and  when  the  world  was  still  absorbed  in  dreams  of  a  past  golden 
age,  and  in  rich  foreshadowings  of  a  boundless  future."-^ 

And  it  is  before  the  wonder-side  of  this  man,  before  this 
nature  which  is  all  compact  of  love  for  the  marvellous,  that  we 
naturally  pause  in  the  history  of  wonder.  For  the  criticism  of 
the  marvellous  no  contributions  can  be  found  in  what  remains  to 
us  of  the  great  Lustral  Poem.  Still,  Empedocles  is  a  name  of 
prime  importance  in  the  development  of  a  criticism  of  the  won- 
derful. The  contradictions  in  the  character  of  the  man  give  a 
living  example  of  the  opposing  forces  at  work  in  the  mass  of  the 
people  of  that  century.  And  from  these  opposite  forces — the 
one,  a  gathering  impetus  of  rationalism,  invading  the  ancient  and 
ever-ready  credulity  of  the  other — contemporary  criticism  derived 
its  nature, — somewhat  timid  and  tentative,  rarely  as  clear  and 
certain  as  the  cry  of  Xenophanes,  and  with  its  stricter  science 
ever  offset  by  a  copious  mysticism.  Again,  the  figure  of  Emped- 
ocles is  an  illuminating  introduction  to  the  teachings  of  his 
greater  but  younger  contemporary,  Plato.  Because  of  their  con- 
tradictions of  character  a  comparison  may  be  drawn  between 
these  two.  Their  rationalizing  doctrines  are  to  be  reconciled  with 
their  mysticism  and  belief  in  the  marvellous  by  remembering  the 
nature  of  the  times  in  which  they  lived — transitional,  engaged  in 
the  breaking  up  of  mythology  into  its  separate  disciplines  of 
philosophy,  religion,  and  science — and  by  remembering  also  that 
they  were  -rationalizing  a  popular  mythology  beyond  which  they 
caught  glimpses  of  a  still  greater  marvel. 

The  transition,  then,  from  Empedocles  to  Plato,  is  easy. 
Postponing  for  a  moment  the  consideration  of  Plato's  criticism 
of  the  use  of  the  marvellous  in  literature,  we  may  examine  the 
contradictions  in  his  general  attitude  toward  the  more  fabulous 
elements  of  the  culture  of  his  time. 

Upon  Plato,*^  living  in  an  age  that  was  beginning  to  deny  its 
mythic  fancies  and  yet  was  ready  to  wonder  at  the  alleged  marvels 
and  miracles  of  an  Empedocles,  and  content  to  admit  that  strange 
man's  claim  of  divinity,  the  clouds  of  mythology  do  indeed  still 


27  Symonds,  Grlc.  Poets,  I,  Ch.  VII. 

28  References  to  Plato  are  as  follows:  Greek  text, — paging  and  letter- 
ing of  Stcphaniis;  translation, — Jowett,  Dialogues  of  Plato,  5  vols.,  3d  ed., 
by  volume  and  page. 


24  STUDIES  IX  THE  MABVELLOUS. 

rest.-"  In  his  attitude,  or  rather,  to  be  exact,  his  attitudes, 
toward  dreams,  ghosts,  magic,  clairvoyancy,  witchcraft,  the 
existence  of  the  gods,  and  mythology  in  general,  there  is  an  un- 
certainty, a  blowing  now  this  way,  now  that,  which  may  indeed 
be  partly  explained  by  those  natural  changes  in  belief  and  out- 
look that  take  place  in  the  course  of  an  individual's  intellectual 
development,  or  by  those  variations  in  exposition  called  esoteric 
and  exoteric,  the  cause  of  which  is  the  necessity  of  tempering  the 
preachment  to  the  capacities  of  different  audiences :  or  it  may  be 
repeated,  by  those  fond  of  the  saying,  that  it  is  often  difficult  to 
determine  which  is  Plato 's  opinion,  which  that  of  an  interlocutor. 
But  the  nice  parallel  between  this  particular  philosopher's  ap- 
parent indecision,  which  at  times  permits  direct  contradictions,^" 
and  the  unsettled  state  of  the  minds  of  men  in  general  of  that  age, 
is  too  alluring  and  obvious  to  be  passed  over.  For  a  fact,  the 
prevailing  psychosis  of  Plato,  whenever  he  regarded  the  mar- 
vellous, was  not  of  that  clear  and  stubbornly  insistent  make  found 
in  our  experimental  philosophers :  it  was  rather  of  that  type  in 
which  an  imagination  subtly  apt  to  mystical  beauties  exists  side 
by  side  with  an  intellect  keenly  on  the  leash  for  strict  and  search- 
ing criticism.  Poet-philosopher  he  was;  and  in  that,  too,  he  was 
a  child  of  his  age. 

A  few  examples  may  illustrate  this  indecision  of  attitude 
toward  the  marvellous.  Toward  dreams,  for  instance,  and 
divination  by  dreams,  Plato  seems  to  have  exhibited  in  general 
a  discouraging  f ront^^ ;  moreover,  the  Timaeus  gives  for  them  a 
material  explanation.^-  Yet  Plato  represents  Socrates  as  rightly 
very  scrupulous  concerning  the  behest  of  the  dream  that  bade  him 
to  "make  music. "^^  Of  ghosts,  and  other  apparitions,  to  change 
the  illustration,  his  speech  is  almost  uniformly  slighting,  and 
in  an  unbelieving  tone.^*  Yet  in  the  second  example  {Phaedo, 
81)  he  makes  direct  use  of  the  popular  belief  in  order  to  lend 


zejowett,  III,  421. 

80  Compare  Cicero,  De  Natura  Deorum,  Lib.  I,  §  XII. 

sijowett,  III,  493-494    {Timaeus  71-72);   V,  297    (Latvs  909-910). 

32  7b.,  Ill,  465   {Timaeus  45-46). 

33  7b,,  II,  198  {Phaedo  60).     Compare  Plutarch,  On  Hearing  Poems,  §2. 

34  76.,  V,  120,  297    {Laws  738,  910);   II,  224    {Phaedo  81).     Compare 
also  III,  493  {Timaeus  71). 


GREEK  CRITICISM  OF  FICTION  AND  MARVEL.  25 

weight  to  his  theory.  Indeed,  this  passage  shows  well  the  poetic 
and  imaginative  method  of  Plato,  by  which  he  establishes  rela- 
tions between  popular  superstitions  and  his  o^vti  philosophical 
speculations,  while  discrediting  wholly,  or  in  part,  the  supersti- 
tions. Magic,  clairvoyancy,  and  witchcraft,  he  thinks,  belong  to 
the  prophets  and  priests,  who  may  know  more  about  them  than 
common  people.  They  are  things  concerning  which  it  is  hard  to 
know  anything  for  certain.  Plato  is  not  quite  prepared  to 
denounce  them  as  pure  deception  and  illusion.  But  their  practice 
and  belief  by  the  common  people  is  roundly  condemned,  and  in 
another  place  a  material  explanation  of  the  whole  matter  is 
offered.3^  Plato  believes  in  gods,  demi-gods,  and  heroes.  Yet  he 
speaks  ironically  of  the  popular  belief  in  them,  and  says  that  we 
know  their  names,  nay,  their  very  existence,  only  from  what  the 
poets  fable  of  them.  Their  names  are  the  inventions  of  men.  We 
know  nothing  of  them.  And  yet  as  a  philosopher  he  argues  at 
length  for  their  existence,  and  says  the  ancients  were  nearer  than 
the  moderns  to  the  gods.^«  In  prophecy,  and  in  madness  of  the 
inspired  sort,  the  "noblest  of  the  arts,"  he  also  believes.^^  Of 
mythology  he  holds  that  much  is  a  picture  of  the  probable,  not  of 
the  actually  real.  In  accordance  with  this  belief  he  does  not  hesi- 
tate to  devise  myths  of  his  own  for  didactic  purposes.  Again,  he 
would  account  for  some  part  of  myth  by  attributing  to  the 
ancients  a  figurative  way  of  speaking.  But  this  suggestion  of 
rationalization  remains  abortive;  and  Plato  professes  he  has  no 
time  to  waste  upon  the  foolishness  of  the  allegorists.  Yet,  to 
what  in  mythology  appears  to  him  ethically  unfit,  he  objects  as 
untrue.  He  is  concerned,  indeed,  less  with  the  strictly  marvellous, 
than  with  the  ethically  base  in  custom  and  manner,  word  and 
performance.  Gorgans  and  Pegasi  he  calls  "inconceivable  and 
portentous  natures,"  but  he  does  not  clearly  object  to  their 
employment  in  tales.^® 

35  7b.,  Ill,  493-494.  Compare  p.  409;  V,  322.  Compare  V,  28,  296; 
III,  43.  '  f  ,       ,  , 

36 /b.,  Ill,  76;  II,  120-121;  V,  96,  100,  108,  120,  122,  183,  231,  etc.; 
Index  under  demi-gods,  etc.;  I,  340-341;  III,  528,  45;  IV,  55;  V,  270,  275ff. 

37  lb.,  I,  450,  473. 

ssRep.  614  ff.,  Statesman  269  ff.,  PJiaedrus  259,  Gorgias  523,  etc.;  Theae- 
tetus  180,  cf.  Ill,  61,  493;  II,  78-79;  III,  60  ff.;  V,  421;  III,  75,  307  ff.: 
I,  434;  III,  530-531.  >      >         ,         >       , 


26  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEVELLOUS. 

It  is  this  ethical  objection  to  the  unfit,  to  that  which  degrades 
the  ideal  of  deity  and  the  moral  fibre  of  the  youth,  that  gives 
Plato  his  point  of  view  for  the  literary  use  of  fiction. 

With  Plato  the  quarrel  between  poetry  and  philosophy  reaches 
its  most  serious  phase.  The  poets,  from  whom  alone,  says  Plato, 
the  existence  of  the  gods  is  known,^^  and  who  "have  ever 
been  the  great  story-tellers  of  mankind,"*"  are  formally  and 
categorically  accused  of  "telling  lies,  and,  what  is  more,  bad 
lies."  "But  when  is  this  fault  committed?"  asks  Adeimantus. 
Socrates  answers:  ""Whenever  an  erroneous  representation  is 
made  of  the  nature  of  gods  and  heroes, — as  when  a  painter  paints 
a  portrait  not  having  the  shadow  of  a  likeness  to  the  original." 
As  examples  of  such  fictions  Socrates  mentions  the  stories  of 
Uranus  and  Cronus,  the  battles  of  the  giants,  the  binding  of 
Here  by  Hephaestus,  Zeus'  punishment  of  Hephaestus,  the 
battles  of  the  gods  in  Homer,*^  ' '  and  innumerable  other  quarrels 
of  gods  and  heroes  with  their  friends  and  relatives."  In  due 
order,  then,  are  given  a  list  of  particulars  in  which  the  poets  have 
offended.  They  have  not  hallowed  the  name  of  God,  but  have 
made  him  an  author  of  evil  ;*-  they  have  represented  God  chang- 
ing and  passing  into  many  forms,  as  a  magician  might  do, 
whereas  God  never  changes  from  his  perfection  of  form;*'  nor 
would  God  make  by  witchcraft  any  such  false  representation  of 
himself  or  another  as  the  poets  represent  him  doing  when  he 
sends  the  lying  dream  to  Agamemnon  ;**  Homer  and  the  other 
poets  have  represented  the  world  below  in  a  most  discouraging 
light  ;*^  they  have  also  pictured  the  heroes,  and  even  the  gods,  as 
pitifully  weeping  or  foolishly  laughing,*"  as  untruthful,  and  in- 
temperate to  the  degree  of  indecency  and  impiety;*^  witness  the 
Aphrodite  episode,  or  Achilles'  treatment  of  Hector's  corpse  at 
the  tomb  of  Patroclus,  or  "the  tale  of  Theseus,  son  of  Poseidon, 


•i«  Rep.  II,  365E. 

*<>Iiep.  II,  377D. 

*i  liep.  II,  377.378. 

*2  Rep.  II,  379-380;   cf.  Democritus,  Diels,   Frg.   175. 

*3R€p.  II,  380-381. 

**Rep.  II,  381-383. 

ii^Rcp.  Ill,  386-387. 

*<--Rep.  Ill,  387-389. 

*T  Rep.  Ill,  389-391. 


GREEK  CRITICISM  OF  FICTION  AND  MARVEL.  27 

or  of  Peirithous,  son  of  Zeus,  going  forth  as  they  did  to  perpetrate 
a  horrid  rape ;  or  of  anj'  other  hero  or  son  of  a  god  daring  to  do 
such  impious  and  dreadful  things  as  they  falsely  ascribe  to  them 
in  our  day.  "*^  "  And  let  us  further  compel  the  poets, ' '  Socrates 
continues,  "to  declare  either  that  these  acts  were  not  done  by 
them,  or  that  they  were  not  the  sons  of  gods; — both  in  the  same 
breath  they  shall  not  be  permitted  to  affirm. '  '*^ 

Such  is  the  list  of  formal  accusations  preferred  by  Plato  in 
this  famous  trial  of  the  poets.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out 
that  the  basis  of  the  charge  in  each  case  is  the  same  ethical  objec- 
tion to  immoral  representations  of  deity  that  had  been  stirring 
during  the  previous  two  centuries. •^•'  Here  the  hints  of  Pindar, 
the  clarion  cry  of  Xenophanes,  and  the  murmurings  of  Heracli- 
tus  are  gathered  and  expanded  with  due  premeditation. 

But  the  immediate  purpose  of  the  prosecution  gives  what 
may  be  called  an  economic  air  to  the  ethical  expostulation.  The 
tremendous  influence  exercised  in  the  ancient  Greek  state  by 
poetry  made  it  necessary,  when  there  was  in  contemplation  a 
republic  which  was  designed  to  be  "  an  imitation  of  the  best  and 
noblest  life,"^^  to  deliberate  carefully  upon  the  question  of  the 
position  of  the  poet  in  the  prospective  city.  Plato  decides  that 
the  untruthful,  impious,  and  blasphemous  habits  of  the  poets, 
illustrated  in  the  charges  brought  against  them,  do  not  conduce 
to  the  moral  welfare  of  the  youth  and  citizens  of  a  republic.  But 
a  state  cannot  stand  firm  or  reach  its  highest  possibilities  if  its 
youth  are  to  be  educated  by  lies  and  abominations  in  place  of  a 
pure  and  sublime  representation  of  the  goodness  and  justice  of 
the  gods.  That  is  an  economic,  to  say  nothing  of  a  moral,  im- 
possibility.    Plato,  therefore,  to  insure  the  stability  of  his  state 


48jowett,  III,  75. 

49  Loc.  cit. 

60  Indeed,  Plato  himself  is  careful  to  explain  that  he  objects  to  certain 
fictions  of  Homer  and  the  other  poets  ' '  not  because  they  are  unpoetical, 
or  unattractive  to  the  popular  ear,  but  because  the  greater  the  poetical 
charm  of  them,  the  less  are  they  meet  for  the  ears  of  boys  and  men  who 
are  meant  to  be  free,  and  who  should  fear  slavery  more  than  death."  (Rep. 
Ill,  387A,  Jowett  III,  69.)  The  passage  well  illustrates  the  inveteracy  of 
Plato's  moral  view.  Fair  writing  that  renders  bad  fiction  pleasant  to  the 
popular  (notice  the  implication)  ear  is  no  excuse  for  the  existence  of  the 
passage.     All  the  worse! 

51  Laws  VII,  817A. 


28  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEVELLOVS. 

in  the  truth  and  purity  of  its  youth,  to  realize  economic  ad- 
vantage from  etliioal  incorruptibility,  provides  in  his  ideal  city 
for  "a  censorship  of  the  writers  of  fiction"  (^inLaTaTijTeov  toi? 

This  economic  censorship  of  the  poets,  however,  is  not  intended 
to  repress  all  fiction.  "Let  the  censors  receive  any  tale  of  fiction 
which  is  good,  and  reject  the  bad."  Plato's  quarrel  with  a  tale 
is  not  begun  because  the  tale  is  untrue,  but  because  it  is  impiously 
untrue.  "We  will  desire  mothers  and  nurses  to  tell  their 
children  the  authorised  ones  (i.e.,  fictions)  only.  Let  them 
fashion  the  minds  with  such  tales,  even  more  fondly  than  they 
would  the  body  with  their  hands;  but  most  of  those  which  are 
now  in  use  must  be  discarded. '  '^^  And  again,  speaking  of  myth- 
ology, he  says,  '  *  Because  we  do  not  know  the  truth  about  ancient 
times,  we  make  falsehood  as  much  like  truth  as  we  can,  and  so 
turn  it  to  account."^*  Such  a  recognition  of  the  good  uses  of 
fiction  shows  clearly  enough  that  whatever  may  have  been  Plato's 
real  belief  touching  the  m>i;hs,  he  approved  of  their  use  in  litera- 
ture so  long  as  a  careful  censorship  set  before  the  public  only 
those  tales  calculated  by  their  moral  propriety  to  elevate  the 
minds  of  the  people.  Moreover,  Plato's  own  repeated  invention 
and  use  of  the  fable  for  purposes  of  instruction,  one  of  the  most 
striking  features  of  his  teaching,^'*  is  proof  obvious  of  his  moral 
approval  of  such  literary  usage. 

There  is  then,  in  a  word,  not  only  an  ethical  objection  to 
fiction,  but  also  an  ethical  recommendation.  In  such  recom- 
mendation lay  the  germ  of  a  possible  development  of  an  aesthetic 
theory  of  the  technical  propriety  of  fiction ;  but  the  negating  zeal 
attendant  upon  the  prohibition  was  so  great  as  to  quite  over- 
shadow the  promise  latent  in  the  more  positive  permissicm.  It 
remained  for  a  more  prosaic  successor  and  keener  analyst  to  take 
that  technical  step  from  the  ethical  commendation. 


52JBep.  II,  377B. 

63  Sep.  II,  377C. 

^*Eep.  II,  382D. 

60  67.,  e.g.,  the  myth  of  Er  {Republic  X,  614ff.),  or  of  the  creation  of 
man  (Protag.  320Cfif.),  or  of  the  soul  (Phaedr.  24r)-2.')7),  or  of  the  origin 
of  love  (Symp.  191,  192).  For  others,  see  Jowett,  Index,  Vol.  V,  475,  sub 
Myth.  For  Plato's  expressed  attitude  ("Myth  more  interesting  than  ar- 
gument")  toward  these  fictions,  see  Protag.  320C;   Jowett  IV,  431-433. 


GREEK  CEITICISM  OF  FICTION  AND  MABVEL.  29 

Finally,  in  this  economic-ethical  consideration  of  fiction  in 
general,  what  of  the  marvellous,  that  particular  kind  or  degree 
of  fiction  ?  In  many  cases,  the  battles  of  the  giants,  for  instance, 
or  Hephaestus'  capture  of  Aphrodite  and  Ares,  the  objectionable 
fiction  possesses  elements  that  are  obviously  marvellous ;  more- 
over, strictly  speaking,  all  god-stories  are  instances  of  marvellous 
fiction,  and  Plato  himself  so  calls  them  in  the  Euthyphro.^^  But 
Plato  does  not,  as  we  have  noticed,  object  to  all  the  fictions  of 
mythology;  nor,  where  there  are  elements  that  stand,  by  contrast 
to  the  very  matter-of-fact  conduct  of  much  in  mythic  fable,  as 
strikingly  wonderful,  is  the  casus  belli  the  marvel  so  much  as  the 
moral.  In  two  of  the  charges  preferred  against  the  poets  there  is 
indeed  mention  of  particular  marvel-elements;  and  the  mention 
is  in  each  case  accompanied  with  a  slur.  *  *  Shall  I  ask  you  whether 
God  is  a  magician,  and  of  a  nature  to  appear  insidiously  now  in 
one  shape,  and  now  in  another?"  asks  Socrates.^"  And  a  little 
further  on  he  follows  the  matter  up  with  a  second  question : 
"But  although  the  gods  are  themselves  unchangeable,  still  by 
witchcraft  and  deception  they  may  make  us  think  that  they 
appear  in  various  forms  ?"^®  Magic  and  witchcraft  are,  indubit- 
ably, marvels ;  but  in  spite  of  the  slur  with  which  they  are  men- 
tioned, and  in  spite  of  Plato's  denunciation  elsewhere^^  of  their 
practice,  no  distinct  objection  to  them  qua  marvellous  and  im- 


5G  Soc.  May  not  this  be  the  reason,  Euthyphro,  why  I  am  charged  with 
impiety — that  I  cannot  away  with  these  stories  about  the  gods?  and  there- 
fore I  suppose  that  people  think  me  wrong.  But,  as  you  who  are  well  in- 
formed about  them  approve  of  them,  I  cannot  do  better  than  assent  to  your 
superior  wisdom.  What  else  can  I  say,  confessing  as  I  do,  that  I  know 
nothing  about  them?  Tell  me,  for  the  love  of  Zeus,  whether  you  really 
believe  they  are  true. 

Euth.  Yes,  Socrates;  and  things  more  wonderful  {davfiaa-iurfpa)  still, 
of  which  the  world  is  in  ignorance. — Euthyphro  6A,  Jowett  II,  79-80. 

5-  Eep.  II,  380D. 

^»Bep.  II,  381E. 

50  Cf.  Eep.  X,  602C-D;  Laws  X,  909-910;  Laus  XI,  933.  In  a  pas- 
sage in  the  Eepublic  {Eep.  II,  364-367),  Orphic  magic  is  denounced,  and 
those  passages  in  the  poets  which  teach  that  the  gods  may  be  controlled 
by  the  arts  of  men,  are  deprecated.  But  the  objection  is  there,  again,  not 
to  the  marvel,  but  to  the  immoral  influence  of  such  passages  upon  youthful 
minds.  {Eep.  II,  365A.)  Indeed,  Plato  himself,  though  fully  aware  of 
the  unnaturalness  of  magic  and  the  like,  and  inclined  to  disbelief  ( vid. 
Laws  XI,  933A),  was  yet  by  no  means  sure  such  things  were  wholly  illu- 
sions. ' '  Now  it  is  not  easy  to  know  the  nature  of  all  these  things  (sorcer- 
ies, incantation,  magic  knots,  etc),"  he  continues  in  the  passage  just  noted. 
* '  Nor  if  a  man  do  know  can  he  readily  persuade  others  to  believe  him. ' ' 


30  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

possible  is  raised  here.  In  the  Fhacdrus,  in  a  passage  to  which  we 
shall  recur  in  speaking  of  the  allegorists,  Plato  speaks  of  Gorgons 
and  Pegasi,  Hippocentaurs  and  Chimeras  dire,  "and  numberless 
other  inconceivahh  and  portentous  natures. '"^°  But  there  is  no 
literary  criticism  in  the  passage. 

The  sum  of  the  matter,  then,  is  that  Plato,  in  direct  criticism 
of  the  marvellous  as  such,  offers  no  more  than  do  his  predecessors. 
Like  them,  his  objection  is  more  to  the  ethically  irrational  than 
the  naturally  impossible;  and  he  surveys  in  his  objections  the 
whole  field  of  fiction  rather  than  the  particular  territory  of  the 
Avonderful.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
that  fiction  is  the  fiction  of  myth  and  legend,  of  god-story  and 
hero-story,  of  the  two  primary  and  most  important  forms  under- 
taken by  the  marvelling  activity.  All  such  fiction  is  at  heart 
fabulous ;  and,  though  religious  belief  in  the  myth,  or  an  anthro- 
pomorphic conduct  of  the  story,  may  convert  wonder  to  an 
illusion  of  every-day  reality,  it  yet  remains  true  that  a  criticism 
of  such  fiction,  ethical  at  first,  as  is  natural  considering  its 
religious  rather  than  re-creative  force,  is  the  field  from  which  in 
later,  less  believing,  and  more  scientific  days  a  true  literary 
criticism  must  spring.  Plato  sowed  that  field  richly  where  the 
Pre-Socratics  had  sowed  before  him.  So  far  he  was  at  one  with 
them.  But  he  went  a  step  further,  as  we  have  shown  above.  He 
gave  to  certain  fiction,  to  certain  stories  of  those  wonderful  beings, 
the  gods,  an  ethical  encouragement.  He  found  for  them  an 
ethical  and  economic  legitimacy.  And,  moreover,  that  very 
addition  of  an  economic  idea  was  a  first  step  away  from  the 
ethical  bondage  of  literary  criticism.  It  was  a  lay  tendency 
springing  from  the  theological  preoccupation  of  the  time,  and  an 
adumbration  of  a  criticism  which  in  becoming  completely  secular 
would  first  achieve  literary  truth. 

Thus,  the  quarrel  between  poet  and  philosopher,  based  upon  a 
religious  or  ethical  consideration,  came  to  a  head  in  Plato  by  his 
categorical  expansion  and  uncompromising  expression  of  that 
consideration ;  thus,  too,  in  Plato,  by  his  addition  of  an  economic 
reason,  the  first  step  awa^^  from  the  old  theological  (juarrel  was 
taken ;  and  thus,  finally,  after  having  re-sowed  and  newly  marked 


00  phaedrus  229E. 


GREEK  CBITICISM  OF  FICTION  AND  MARVEL.  31 

the  field  from  which  might  spring  a  technical  criticism  of  fiction, 
Plato  started  the  growth  by  an  ethical  commendation,  which,  in 
turn,  was  succeeded  by  an  aesthetic  judgment  from  the  mouth  of 
his  great  pupil. 

But  before  proceeding  to  Aristotle,  who  will  give  us  the  first, 
and  almost  the  last  word  in  the  matter,  so  far  as  Greek  criticism 
is  concerned,  it  is  necessary  to  pause  a  moment  and  contemplate 
two  compromises  offered  in  the  quarrel  of  poet  and  sage  by  the 
philosophers  themselves. 

In  the  first  place,  it  was  proposed  that  the  myths  were, 
properly  taken,  allegories.  By  this  means  the  morally  shocking 
and  irrational  elements  could  be  explained  away.  To  valuable 
criticism  this  compromise,  by  launching  an  endless  discussion  and 
interpretation  of  myths  from  the  unchecked  fancies  of  numberless 
"umbratical  doctors,"  was  fatal.  The  absurdities  to  which  the 
allegorists  became  subject  are  too  well  known  to  make  their 
rehearsal  here  a  matter  of  moment.  The  historian  Phaborinus 
says  that  Anaxagoras,  in  the  fifth  century  before  Christ,  was  the 
first  to  declare  the  Homeric  poems  an  allegory  "composed  in 
praise  of  virtue  and  justice.  ""^^  According  to  another  report 
Theagenes  of  Rhegium  had  that  doubtful  honor.''-  Phaborinus 
goes  on  to  say  that  Metrodorus  of  Lampsacus,*'^  the  friend  of 
Anaxagoras,  carried  this  sort  of  interpretation  further.  Plato 
mentions  Glaucon  and  Stesimbrotus  the  Thasian,  as  sharing  with 
Metrodorus  the  allegorical  method."*  Plato  himself,  as  we  have 
seen,  found  no  time  to  investigate  this  theory  of  mythology,  spoke 
of  it  in  slighting  fashion,  and  believed  it  usually  to  be  introduced 
first  when  "cities  have  leisure.""^  Xenophon  ridicules  the  alle- 
gorical theory  by  making  Socrates  poke  fun  at  the  pedant 
Niceratus  (who  can  recite  all  of  Homer).  Socrates  compliments 
the    pedant    on    being    far    above    the    public    ballad-singers. 


<^'^  Fragmenta  E istoricorum  Grcecorum  (Miiller,  C),  III,  581,  Frg.  26; 
quoted  by  Diog.  L.  in  his  Life  of  Anaxagoras,  §  VII. 

82  See  Lobock,  Aglaophamus  1,  §  20  flf.,  where  the  matter  of  allegorical 
interpretation  is  discussed  at  length.  See  also  Wolf,  Prolog,  ad  Horn., 
CLXI. 

03  Diels,  Frag.  Forsokr.,  p.  339. 

6*  Ion  530C;  Jowett,  T,  496. 

^^Phaedrus  229C-230A;   Critias  110 A. 


32  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABVELLOUS. 

"ArjXov  ycip^  €(f>i]  6  ^coKpciTT]^^  OTL  ra?  xnrovoia'i  ovk  eiriaravraL.  <tv 
Se  ^Trjcn/x^poTcp  t€  kuI  ^ Xva^ipidvhpcp  koX  aXXoi^;  TroXXot?  iroXii  Be- 
B(OKa<;   apyvpiov^  coare  ovSev  ae  rSiv  ttoXXov  a^icov  Xe\7;^e."** 

But  in  spite  of  ridicule**^  the  doctrine  flourished  through  a  long 
line  of  learned  names.  Among  the  Neoplatonists,  to  carry  the 
matter  beyond  our  present  date  and  have  done  with  it,  Porphyry 's 
De  Aiitro  Nympharum  is  typical.  The  Emperor  Julian,  in  the 
fourth  century  after  Christ,  allegorizes  the  myths  after  the  Neo- 
platonic  fashion  in  his  orations  To  the  So7i  and  To  the  Mother  of 
the  Gods.^^  How  the  habit  crept  into  Christian  commentary,  as 
in  Origen,  and  how  there,  as  well  as  in  secular  literature,"^  it 
persisted  on  through  the  Middle  Ages  (and  is  not  dead  yet),  is  a 
story  as  monotonous  as  it  is  useless. 

The  second  solution,  or  compromise,  of  the  philosophical  doubt, 
may  with  convenience  be  mentioned  side  by  side  with  the  alle- 
gorical solution,  though  it  was  not  broached  until  after  the  death 
of  Aristotle.  Euhemerus  (whose  date  De  Block^°  puts  approxi- 
mately at  330-240  B.C.),  with  his  well-known  proposal  to  refer  the 
myths  to  human  subjects,  shows  that  by  the  time  of  Aristotle  men 
were  ready  easily  to  approach  the  subject  from  a  strictly  secular 
point  of  view.  Indeed,  De  Block  thinks  that  Euhemerus  did  not 
make  even  a  serious,  bona  fide  attempt  at  a  solution.  His  purpose 
was  not,  says  De  Block,  to  discover  the  truth  through  an  impartial 
study  of  the  traditions  concerning  the  gods:  his  work  belongs, 
rather,  "dans  cette  categoric  d'oeuvres  hybrides  ou  la  fiction 
sert  a  developper  et  a  vulgariser  quelque  systeme  de  philosophic 
politique,  morale  ou  religieuse."^^  In  a  word  the  book  is  a  roman 
philosophique,  one  of  those  fables  of  the  philosophers  or  liistorians 
discussed  by  Chassang,''- — such  as  Plato's  Atlantis  or  Xenophon's 


"« Xenophon,    Banquet    III,    6.      Cf.,    also    IV,    7,    8, — the    celebrated 
"onions  and  wine"  passage. 

«7  See,  e.g.,  Plutarch,  How  to  Hear  Poems,  §  4.    Ed.,  Goodwin,  "Morals," 
Boston  1883,  Vol.  2,  p.  54. 

«8  Tr.,  Thomas  Taylor,  London  1793. 

60  Tzetzes,  for  example.     See  Saintsbury,  Hist.  Crit.,  I,  187. 

70  K.  De  Block,  tuhemdre,  son  Livre  et  sa  Doctrine,  Mons  1876. 

71/6.,  p.  53. 

72  Chassang,  Hist,  du  Boman  etc.,  Paris  1862. 


GBEEE  CBITICISM  OF  FICTION  AND  MARVEL.  33 

Cyropaedia.    Nor,  in  all  probability,  was  Euhemerus  the  first  to 
advance  the  theory  that  goes  by  his  name.'^ 

If  indeed  we  are  to  regard  the  work  of  the  allegorists  and  the 
euhemerists  as  appertaining  to  literary  criticism,  and  Saintsbury 
remarks  that  the  allegorical  and  rationalistic  interpretation  of 
Homer  probably  constitutes  the  earliest  Greek  literary  criticism,^* 
we  must  at  least  acknowledge  that  so  far  as  a  consideration  of  the 
legitimacy  of  fiction  in  fine  literature  and  of  its  proper  use  and 
management  is  concerned,  neither  school  presents  anything  at  all. 
The  purpose  in  the  case  of  either  discipline  does  not  embrace  such 
a  consideration  in  its  purview.  The  purpose  is  less  literary 
than  it  is  religious  or  ethical.  Both  schools  are  working  under 
the  old  moral  impetus.  And  though  they  deal  constantly  with 
tales  of  wonder,  there  is  no  sign  of  an  attempt  at  philosophizing 
over,  or  criticizing,  the  place  of  the  marvellous  in  literature.  In 
offering  their  solutions  of  the  impious  and  impossible  in  myth, 
they,  like  Xenophanes  and  Plato,  are  testifying  to  a  time  when 
the  impossible,  or  at  least  the  morally  impossible,  in  literature, 
was  regarded  as  a  moral  blemish.  Here  they  were  at  one  with 
other  minds  of  their  times.  But,  in  going  beyond  an  expostulation 
to  apply  a  solution,  these  two  schools  started  an  inquiry  which  in 
course  of  time  has  become  completely  secular  and  scientific,  and 
bears  as  its  ultimate  fruit  the  present  school  of  ethnological  or 
comparative  mythology.  For  the  Greeks,  here,  as  elsewhere  in 
their  literary  criticism,  the  lack  of  a  comparative  view  prevented 
that  realization  of  the  actual  nature  and  value  of  an  element 
which  the  criticism  of  the  present  has  learned  to  appreciate  from 
the  knowledge  contributed  by  comparative  ethnology. 

After  disposing  of  these  two  attempts  at  a  solution  of  the  origin 
and  purpose  of  the  myths,  the  main  course  of  the  development 
of  a  criticism  of  marvellous  fiction  may  be  resumed  in  the  work 
of  Aristotle.  The  many-sidedness  and  penetration  of  the  Stagi- 
rite's  mind  is  well  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  in  spite  of  his 
skeptical  attitude  as  a  scientist  and  philosopher  toward  the  won- 


73  De  Block,  op.  cit.,  p.  65  ff. ;  for  the  successors  of  Euhemerus,  see 
Decharme,  P.,  La  Critique  des  Traditions  Eeligieuses  ches  les  Grecs,  Paris 
1904,  pp.  381-393. 

74  Saintsbury,  Hist.  Crit.,  I,  10-11. 


34  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

derful,  which  is  well  illustrated  by  his  remark  concerning  the 
Theogouists'  fabulous  systems  of  philosophy  to  the  effect  that  it 
is  "not  worth  while  to  consider  them  seriously, "'°  he  nevertheless 
was  able,  as  a  literary  critic,  to  survey  quite  seriously  the  place 
of  fiction  and  the  marvellous  (to  Oavfiaarov)  in  literature. 
Aristotle  did  not  mix  his  points  of  view.  Instead  of  declaiming 
with  Plato  a  moral  anathema  against  the  poets,  or,  like  the 
allegorists,  proposing  for  literary  faults  some  convenient  panacea 
distilled  from  an  extra-technical  source,  Aristotle  immediately 
proclaimed  that  heretofore  the  sacred  character  and  moral  in- 
fluence of  Homeric  and  Hesiodic  literature  had  in  part  prevented 
pious  criticism  from  seeing  clearly.  Against  those  who  decried 
poetry  as  a  lie  dealing  with  perversions,  instead  of  representa- 
tions, of  facts,  Aristotle  boldly  asserted  that  there  is  a  poetic 
truth  differing  from  and  transcending  historical  truth,^®  and  that 
poetry  properly  describes  not  only  what  is,  but  also  what  is  sg,id 
or  thought  to  be,  and  what  ought  to  be."  Indeed,  so  far  did 
Aristotle  push  this  view,  which  has  since  become  well  known  as 
the  doctrine  of  higher  reality  in  art,  that,  as  Professor  Saints- 
bury  remarks,^*  fiction  and  poetry  were  to  him  practically 
coextensive  and  synonymous.  Aristotle's  elaboration  of  the  doc- 
trine need  not  detain  us  here.  Professor  Butcher,  by  the  third 
chapter  of  his  Aristotle's  Theory  of  Poetry  and  Fine  Art,  has 
brought  all  students  of  the  doctrine  into  his  debt  for  an  exhaus- 
tive exegesis  of  those  parts  of  the  text  which  open  out  this  view. 
Merely  for  convenience  it  may  be  stated  by  way  of  reminder 
that  Aristotle,  in  answering  the  critical  objection  that  the  poet 
is  in  the  habit  of  describing  the  impossible  or  what  is  not  true  to 
fact,  holds  that  the  impossible  may  be  justified  by  an  appeal  to 


"•''  It  is  also  interesting  in  this  connection  to  remember  that  lukewarm 
attitude  of  Aristotle  toward  deity  and  other  religious  mysteries  that  won 
for  him  among  the  early  Christians  a  suspicious  neglect.  It  is  remarkable 
that  from  Aristotle,  who  by  reason  of  his  scientific  and  materialistic  char- 
acter might  have  seemed  far  less  likely  to  do  justice  in  such  an  affair 
than  would  one  of  his  more  imaginative  predecessors,  came  the  first  real 
.iuatification  of  fiction  and  the  use  of  the  fabulous  in  literature.  Here, 
indeed,  is  a  plume  in  the  hat  of  the  empiricists! 

70  Poetics  IX,  2-6. 

TT  Poetics,  XXV,  1.  (All  references  to  the  Poetics  arc  to  Butcher's  edi- 
tion: Aristotle's  Theory  of  Poetry  and  Fine  Art,  3d.  ed.,  1902.) 

'sEist.  Crit.  I,  31.     Cf.  Poetics  IX,  1-3. 


GREEK  CRITICISM  OF  FICTION  AND  MARVEL.  35 

artistic  requirements,  higher  reality  (the  "ought  to  be"),  or 
received  opinion.''^  The  irrational  is  justly  censured  when  for  its 
introduction  there  is  found  no  inner  necessity.^"  In  a  word,  as 
Aristotle  puts  it,  with  direct  innuendo  to  Plato :  ' '  The  standard 
of  correctness  is  not  the  same  in  poetry  and  politics,  any  more 
than  in  poetry  and  any  other  art."^^ 

The  twenty-fifth  chapter  of  the  Poetics,  that  involved  piece  of 
writing  in  which  this  view  of  poetic  fiction  is  expounded,  marks 
the  birth  of  a  true,  technical  literary  criticism  of  fiction  from  the 
lap  of  the  moral  and  idealistic  philosophy  of  the  previous  cen- 
turies.*^ It  w^ould  be  strange  if  there  were  no  notice  here  of  that 
heightened  or  exaggerated  degree  of  fiction  called  the  marvellous. 
Such  a  notice,  in  the  brief  note-book  manner  of  the  Poetics,  is 
found  in  the  closing  sections  of  the  preceding  chapter.  The  pas- 
sage is  of  such  importance  as  to  demand  quotation  in  full.  The 
author  is  engaged  in  noting  the  points  of  difference  between  Epic 
and  Tragic  Poetry.  After  contrasting  the  length  and  metre  of 
epos  and  tragedy,  he  continues:  "The  element  of  the  wonder- 
ful (to  Bav/xaa-Tov)  is  admitted  in  Tragedy.  The  irrational 
(to  aXoyov) ,  on  which  the  wonderful  depends  for  its  chief 
effects,  has  wider  scope  in  Epic  poetry,  because  there  the  person 
acting  is  not  seen.  Thus,  the  pursuit  of  Hector  would  be  ludicrous 
if  placed  upon  the  stage — the  Greeks  standing  still  and  not  join- 
ing in  the  pursuit,  and  Achilles  waving  them  back.  But  in  the 
Epic  poem  the  absurdity  passes  unnoticed.  Now  the  wonderful 
is  pleasing:  as  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that,  in  telling  a 
story,  every  one  adds  something  startling  of  his  owti,  knowing  that 
his  hearers  like  it.  It  is  Homer  who  has  chiefly  taught  other  poets 
the  art  of  telling  lies  skilfully.  The  secret  of  it  lies  in  a  fallacy. 
For,  assuming  that  if  one  thing  is  or  becomes,  a  second  is  or 
becomes,  men  imagine  that,  if  the  second  is,  the  first  likewise  is 


-^Poetics,  XXV,   17. 

^0  Poetics  XXV,  19. 

Si  Poetics  XXV,  3. 

82  It  is  of  course  to  be  remembered  that  another  stream  of  criticism — 
grammatical  and  verbal,  of  Sophist  and  Rhetorician — which  has  not  been 
noted  hero  because  contributing  nothing  to  the  subject  in  hand,  was  yet 
instrumental  in  bringing  to  birth  the  general  criticism  of  Aristotle,  and 
therefore,  in  some  part  at  leaet,  his  particular  criticism  of  fiction.  Cf. 
Mitchell  Carroll,  Aristotle's  Poetics,  C.  XXV,  Baltimore  1895,  pp.  11-12. 


36  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABVELLOUS. 

or  becomes.  But  this  a  false  inference.  Hence,  where  the  first 
thing  is  untrue,  it  is  quite  unnecessary,  provided  the  second  be 
true,  to  add  that  the  first  is  or  has  become.  For  the  mind,  know- 
ing the  second  to  be  true,  falsely  infers  the  truth  of  the  first. 
There  is  an  example  of  this  in  the  Bath  Scene  of  the  Odyssey.^' 

"Accordingly,  the  poet  should  prefer  probable  impossibilities 
to  improbable  possibilities.  The  tragic  plot  must  not  be  composed 
of  irrational  parts.  Everything  irrational  should,  if  possible,  be 
excluded ;  or,  at  all  events,  it  should  lie  outside  the  action  of  the 
play  (as,  in  the  Oedipus,  the  hero's  ignorance  as  to  the  manner 
of  Laius'  death)  ;  not  within  the  drama, — as  in  the  Electra,  the 
messenger's  account  of  the  Pythian  Games;  or,  as  in  the  IMysians, 
the  man  who  comes  from  Tegea  to  Mysia  without  speaking.  The 
plea  that  otherwise  the  plot  would  have  been  ruined,  is  ridiculous ; 
such  a  plot  should  not  in  the  first  instance  be  constructed.  But 
once  the  irrational  has  been  introduced  and  an  air  of  likelihood 
imparted  to  it,  we  must  accept  it  in  spite  of  the  absurdity.  Take 
even  the  irrational  incidents  in  the  Odyssey,  where  Odysseus  is 
left  upon  the  shore  of  Ithaca.®*  How  intolerable  even  these  might 
have  been  would  be  apparent  if  an  inferior  poet  were  to  treat  the 
subject.  As  it  is,  the  absurdity  is  veiled  by  the  poetic  charm  with 
which  the  poet  invests  it. '  '^^ 

Professor  Butcher  in  commenting  on  this  passage  remarks: 
"The  fiction  here  intended  is,  as  the  context  shows,  not  simply 
that  fiction  which  is  blended  with  fact  in  every  poetic  narrative  of 
real  events.  The  reference  here  is  rather  to  those  tales  of  a  strange 
and  marvellous  character,  which  are  admitted  into  epic  more 
freely  than  into  dramatic  poetry."®"  Such  an  interpretation  of 
the  passage  is  undoubtedly  the  right  one.  To  Bavixaarov  is  an 
expression  reserved  to  this  chapter;  it  does  not  occur  in  the 
wider  discussion  of  general  poetic  truth  contained  in  the  twenty- 
fifth  section.  Moreover,  at  least  two  of  the  illustrations,  that  from 
the  Mysians  and  the  following  one  from  the  Odyssey,  have  a 
distinct  element  of  marvel.      But,  for  the  rest,  there  is  such  a 


83  See  Butcher,  op.  cit.,  p.  172  note. 

84  Od.  XIII,  93ff. 

85  Butcher,  pp.  95-97  {Poetics  XXIV,  8-10). 

86  7b.,  p.  171.     Cf.,  to  the  same  effect.  Twining,  Aristotle's  Treatise  on 
Poetry,  II,  346ff  (1789). 


GBEEK  CRITICISM  OF  FICTION  AND  MABFEL.  37 

loose  handling  of  the  words  davfxaarov^  aXoya^  and  ahvvara 
(the  wonderful,  irrational,  and  impossible)  that  it  is  hard  not 
only  to  determine  the  exact  bearing  of  the  different  parts  and 
illustrations  of  the  paragraphs,  but  even  the  exact  meaning  and 
relations  of  the  terms  themselves.  In  spite  of  these  difficulties, 
which  need  not  be  enlarged  upon  here,  these  thirty-odd  lines 
contain  well-nigh  the  entire  gist  of  all  Greek  criticism  of  the 
proper  use  of  the  marvellous  in  literature.  Some  seven  points  are 
made.    They  must  be  emphasized  in  detail. 

First  of  all,  there  are  two  general  points,  which  in  turn  are 
followed  by  five  strictly  technical  observations.  After  the  pre- 
liminary statement  that  the  wonderful  is  admitted  in  tragedy  and 
epos,  the  general  nature  of  wonder  is  defined  as  that  which  relies 
for  its  chief  effects  upon  the  irrational.  Further  than  this 
analysis  of  the  major  element  Aristotle  does  not  carry  us;  but 
this  simple  statement,  conveyed  in  a  subordinate  clause,  is  one 
which  the  moral  doctors  in  their  haste  refused  duly  to  express 
as  the  first  step  in  a  proper  criticism  of  the  subject.  The  frag- 
mentary character  of  the  essay  is  well  sho\ATi  by  this  rough  and 
and  incomplete  analysis  of  to  Oavyiaarov. —  Another  general 
remark  is  that  which  notes  the  universality  both  of  the  pleasure 
in  the  wonderful  and  also  of  its  practice  by  the  raconteur.  This 
observation,  taken  with  the  previous  generalization,  constitutes 
what  is  practically  a  hint  toward  the  psychology  of  wonder; 
and  in  spite  of  the  commonplace  character  of  the  two  points,  they 
yet  present  to  the  weary  searcher  for  a  definite  and  correlated 
criticism  a  great  promise.  There  is  here  a  recognition  of  wonder 
as  a  thing  omnipresent  in  life  and  story-telling,  and  an  admis- 
sion of  it  to  a  criticism  based  upon  the  naturalness  of  that  fact, 
instead  of  an  exclusion  founded  upon  a  moral  preconception,  or 
upon  a  permission,  like  that  of  Plato's,  which  is  grounded  in  a 
political,  non-literary  economy.  The  air  of  free  fact  and  open- 
eyed  observation  is  refreshing  after  the  theological  dust,  even 
though  the  manner  is  dryly  scientific. 

Of  strictly  technical  points,  the  first  in  order  of  the  paragraph 
is  the  differentiation  of  the  use  of  wonder  (or  at  least  of  the 
irrational,  which  seems  to  amount  to  the  same  thing)  in  the  two 
literary  kinds,  tragedy  and  epos.     Here  is  something  entirely 


38  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEFELLOUS. 

new!  The  differentiation  is  psychological,  as  it  should  be.  In 
epic  poetry  there  is  wider  scope  for  the  irrational  because  the 
epos,  by  presenting  only  words  and  associated  images  to  the  ear 
and  eye,  falls  short  of  the  more  uncompromising  vividness  and 
reality  of  tragedy,  which  presents  its  scenes  in  actual,  concrete 
forms.  In  the  epic  "the  person  acting  is  not  seen";  therefore, 
many  a  minor  absurdity,  which  would  become  glaringly  ap- 
parent in  the  more  realistic  presentation  of  the  stage,  escapes  the 
notice  of  the  reader  of  the  epic  tale. 

' '  Segnius  irritant  aninios  demissa  per  awreni, 

' '  Quam  quae  sunt  oculis  sub jecta  fidelibus,  et  quae 

' '  Ipse  sibi  tradit  spectator. '  '87 

But  it  is  Homer  who  most  of  all  has  led  the  way  in  skilful 
epic  lying.  This  historical  hint,  so  perfectly  free  from  a  puri- 
tanical cast,  so  urbanely  recognizing  the  nature  of  art,  is  im- 
mediately succeeded  by  an  attempt  to  grasp  the  master's  secret 
for  successful  mendacity.  The  vicious  circle  which  Aristotle 
adduces  is  one  that  IMrs.  Radcliffe  was  over-fond  of  caricaturing 
in  the  superstitions  of  her  menial  characters.®^  In  its  serious 
application  lies  the  secret  of  the  TrpSyrov  i/reOSo?, — that  first 
assumption  in  fiction  from  which,  once  allowed,  all  other  im- 
possibilities in  the  tale  flow  so  naturally  as  in  turn  to  produce 
an  illusion  of  truth  in  the  first  falsehood.  Twining  cites 
the  observation  of  Hobbes  that  "probable  fiction  is  similar 
to  reasoning  rightly  from  a  false  principle."  The  enunciation 
of  this  cardinal  principle  concerning  the  nature  of  fiction  and 
the  use  of  the  wonderful,  drawn  as  it  is  from  psychological 
observation  and  actual  practice,  runs  close  to  the  heart  of  the 
matter. 

From  the  above  follows  the  next  technical  principle, — a  rule 
for  the  guidance  of  the  poet,  and  the  delimitation  of  the  field 


87  Ars  Foetica,  11.  180-183. 

88  "But  they  do  say,"  cries  Annette,  "that  something  has  been  seen,  in 
the  dead  of  night,  standing  beside  the  great  cannon,  as  if  to  guard  it. ' ' 

"Well!  my  good  Annette,"  replies  the  heroine,  "the  people  who  tell 
such  stories  are  happy  in  having  you  for  an  auditor,  for  I  perceive  you 
believe  them  all." 

"Dear  ma'amselle!  I  will  show  you  the  very  cannon;  you  can  see  it 
from  these  windows!  " 

"Well     .     .     .     but  that  does  not  prove  that  an  apparition  guards  it." 

"What!  not  if  I  show  you  the  very  cannon!  Dear  ma'am,  you  will 
believe  nothing." — I'he  Mysteries  of  Udolpho,  Chap.  XIX. 


GBEEK  CRITICISM  OF  FICTION  AND  MARVEL.  39 

of  the  irrational  in  tragedy.  To  the  famous  epigram  irpoac- 
peladat  re  Set  ahvvara  eiKora  fxaXkov  t)  Svvara  cnridava  ("the 
poet  should  prefer  probable  impossibilities  to  improbable  possi- 
bilities," as  Butcher  neatly  translates),  which  Aristotle  by 
repetition  brings  into  chief  importance  among  his  observations 
on  fiction,  no  added  emphasis  is  necessary.  It  is  the  first  and 
strongest  enunciation  of  one  of  the  cardinal  points  in  the  theory 
and  practice  of  fiction.  The  limitation  of  the  irrational  to  space 
without  the  plot  is  another  example  of  Aristotle's  differentiation 
of  the  use  of  the  fictitious  according  to  the  literary  kind  involved, 
a  distinction  which  many  a  later  critic  has  unpardonably  for- 
gotten. It  is  in  itself  a  further  proof  of  Aristotle's  habit  of 
generalization  from  empirical  observation,  and  of  his  avoidance 
of  vapid  and  irresponsible  theorizing. 

The  last  observation  of  technique  recalls  the  'Charis  Doc- 
trine' of  Pindar  :^^  the  absurdity  is  so  veiled  in  poetic  beauty 
that  the  sense  of  the  former  is  lost  in  the  appreciation  of  the 
latter.  This  is  the  aesthetic  point  of  view  par  excellence;  and 
Aristotle  comes  a  step  nearer  than  Pindar  to  admitting  that  the 
beauty  of  the  thing  legitimizes  its  impossibility.  There  is  here 
no  solemn  warning  that  "the  days  that  follow  are  the  wisest 
witnesses," — only  a  slight  slur  in  the  "we  must  accept  it." 
Aristotle,  for  all  his  science  and  experimenting,  was  a  truer  lover 
of  Homer  than  his  more  imaginative  teacher. 

To  these  criticisms  of  the  wonderful  and  irrational  contained 
in  the  twenty-fourth  chapter,  one  important  notice  from  the 
twenty-fifth  must  now  briefly  be  added.  Among  the  justifica- 
tions of  fiction,  as  we  saw,  was  the  matter  of  popular  belief  and 
tradition,  the  aW  ovv  (^acn  ('thus-men-say')  doctrine,  as  con- 
veniently enough  it  may  be  called.  It  was  under  this  justifica- 
tion that  Aristotle  placed  the  supernatural.  "This  applies  to 
tales  about  the  gods.  It  may  well  be  that  these  stories  are  not 
higher  than  fact  nor  yet  true  to  fact :  they  are,  very  possibly, 
what  Xenophanes  says  of  them.  But  anyhow,  'this  is  what 
is  said,'  ""^  If  there  is  a  sufficient  body  of  belief  for  the 
matter,  let  it  pass !    This  apology  for  myth,  coupled  as  it  is  with 


8»  See  above,  p.  18. 

80  Poetics  XXV,  7.— Butcher,  p.  101. 


40  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEVELLOUS. 

the  name  of  Xenophanes,  who  carries  us  back  to  the  old  philo- 
sophical objection,  brightly  signalizes  at  the  close  of  our  account 
of  Aristotle  that  philosopher's  impartiality  and  penetration,  of 
which  we  spoke  in  the  beginning  of  this  section."^  Though  in- 
clined to  approve  the  anthropomorphic  charge  of  the  great 
Eleatic,  the  greater  Stagirite  is  not  blind  to  the  propriety  of  the 
god-stories  from  a  literary  point  of  view :  in  the  course  of  his 
masterly,  quite  empirical,  and  strictly  technical  inquiry  into 
the  place  of  the  wonderful  in  poetry  and  the  proper  conditions 
of  its  emplojonent,  he  has  not  neglected  to  put  in  their  proper 
position,  under  the  account  of  fiction,  ra  irepl  dewv^ — the  tales 
about  the  gods !  This  is  perhaps  the  crowning  truth,  and  most 
valuable  disillusionment  of  old  preconceptions,  contributed  by 
Aristotle  to  the  new  literary  criticism  of  the  wonderful  begun  by 
him.  From  the  old  philosophical  criticism,  from  the  ethical  and 
educational  prepossessions,  has  growm  at  last  a  literary  theory, 
which  properly  and  inevitably  includes  a  special  theory  of  fiction 
and  the  fabulous, — the  two  last,  however,  still  somewhat  confused 
in  a  multiplicity  of  terms  (^Oavfiaarov^  aXoya^  aSvpara^  airiOava). 
The  new  critical  theory  was  carried  forward  in  most  dis- 
appointing fashion  by  the  various  schools  of  philosophy  and 
rhetoric.  In  nothing  is  their  work  more  disappointing  than  in 
the  matter  of  fiction.  But  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  there  was 
no  straw  wherewith  to  make  bricks.  "The  whole  of  Greek 
Poetic,"  says  Professor  Saintsbury,  "was  prejudicially  affected 
— and  the  affection  has  continued  to  be  a  source  of  evil  in  all 
criticism  since — by  the  accidental  lateness  of  prose  fiction  in 
Greek  literature.""^  Without  a  definite  body  of  fiction  to 
stimulate  the  theory  of  fiction  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  the 
latter  would  make  any  great  strides.  The  three  centuries  between 
Aristotle  and  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  are  bare  enough  of 
critical  texts  of  any  kind,  while  for  our  purposes  even  the 
work  of  the  industrious  Dionysius  offers  but  a  passing  in- 
terest. In  the  sixth  chapter  of  the  De  Thucydide  occurs  a 
notice  interesting  for  its  bearing  upon  the  relation  of  history  to 
fiction.      Between  history  and  poetry  there  had  been,  as  Pro- 


01  See  above,  pp.  101-102. 

02  Hist.  Crit.  1,  192. 


GBEEK  CRITICISM  OF  FICTION  AND  MABVEL.  41 

fessor  Butcher  observes,  no  feud  at  first,  as  between  poetry  and 
philosophy.®^  Homer,  to  the  Greeks,  was  the  minute  historian  of 
the  Trojan  war.  The  Pre-Socraties  have  left  no  hint  of  a  quarrel 
in  this  matter.  Even  Plato,  in  a  matter  of  history,  is  ready  to 
praise  Homer  as  speaking  the  words  of  God  and  nature.®* 
"Aristotle  himself  speaks  of  the  myths  as  history;  the  incidents 
they  narrate  are  facts  (ra  yevofieva);  the  names  of  their  heroes 
are  'historical'  [yevofxeva  ovofiara)  as  opposed  to  fictitious 
(Treirot.Tjfieva)  names.  "®^  Yet  he  ^vas  also  able  to  point  out 
the  difference  betwen  historical  and  poetic  truth.®"  With  the  rise 
of  historical  prose  that  distinction  naturally  grew;  it  was  the 
distinction  between  history  and  fiction.  And  now,  three  hundred 
years  later,  Dionysius  cries  out  fiercely  against  the  admission  of 
marvellous  fictions  into  serious  history.  The  Halicarnassian  says 
that  Thucydides  excels  the  superior  historians  in  two  respects, — 
first,  in  his  arrangement  of  material;  "altera,"  (I  give  the  Latin 
translation)  "quod  fabulosum  in  suos  libros  nihil  induxit,  neque 
in  eam  partem  deflexit,  ut  multitudini  fraudem  et  tanquam 
imposturam  faceret.  quo  in  genere  superiores  omnes  peccauerant ; 
qui  Lamias  commemorarunt  nescio  quas  in  siluis  et  saltibus,  e 
terra  prodeuntes ;  et  Nai'das  in  terra  atque  aqua  pariter  degentes 
ab  inferis  profectas,  pelago  innatantes,  semiferas,  cum  hominibus 
coeuntes,  et  ex  mortali  diuinoque  concubitu  semideam  sobolem,  et 
alia  quaedam,  quae  nostra  aetas,  ut  incredibilia  planeque  delira, 
contemnat.  "®^  The  discussion  is  carried  on  in  the  two  following 
chapters.  In  the  seventh  the  author  notices  how"  the  false  creeps 
into  history  through  the  successive  repetitions  of  verbal  tradi- 
tion. The  Introduction  to  the  Antiquitates  contains  other 
matter  regarding  his  idea  of  history.  But  the  above  quotation 
is  sufficient  to  bring  to  our  attention  that  other  source  of  hostile 
criticism  of  fiction — the  historical  conscience — the  growth  of 
which  is  usually  one  of  the  earliest  testimonies  to  the  differentia- 
tion of  a  prose  fiction  from  historical  narrative.®® 


93  Op.  cit.,  p.  401. 
oiLaws  III,  680-682. 
85  Butcher,  p.  402   (Poetics  IX,  6-7). 
90  See  above,  p.  102. 

o"!  Dionys.  of  Hal.,  ed.  I.  I.  Eeiske,  Leipzig  1777,  De  Thucyd.,  §  VI. 
98  Compare,  e.cj.,  the  reception   of  Geoffrey  of   Monmouth's  History  of 
the  Britons.    See  Morlcy's  English  Writers,  3d.  ed..  III.  -i'. 


42  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEFELLOUS. 

In  the  first  century  after  Christ,  Plutarch  and  Longinus  are 
the  great  names  for  our  purpose.  The  work  De  Elocuiione  {irepi 
ep/xr]V€ia<;)  ^  which  goes  under  the  name  of  Demetrius  Phalereus, 
and  may  have  been  of  the  first  century  before  Christ  or  the  first 
century  after,®"  offers  nothing  beyond  a  faint  recognition  of  the 
rhetorical  use  of  the  wonderfully  exaggerated  in  climax/""  of 
the  impossible  in  the  field  of  variety  and  charm  (the  Charis 
Doctrine^"^),  and  of  the  fable  when  appositely  introduced.^"^ 
Plutarch,  more  talkative,  often  wandered  toward  the  strange  and 
prodigious.  Julian^"^  mentions  the  Mythical  Tales  of  Plutarch, 
which  are  now  lost.  Evidently  the  amiable  moralist  could 
inveigh  against  superstition^"*  while  penning  the  romance  of 
Theseus,^"'*  or  the  frequent  asides  of  the  fabulous  found  in  the 
Quest  ions. '^°^  But  his  criticism  of  the  use  of  the  wonderful  in 
literature  is  found  in  the  famous  essay  on  How  a  Young  Man 
Ought  to  Hear  Poems.'^°'^ 

In  this  paper,  Plutarch,  while  adopting  the  old  moral  view 
of  the  dangers  of  poetry,  and  warning  youth  against  the  pitfalls 
of  fiction  and  fable  in  the  poets,  at  the  same  time  is  more  inclined 
to  speak  of  dangers  than  of  positive  iniquities,  and  even  goes  so 
far  as  to  elaborate  something  of  a  philosophy  of  fiction.  In  his 
attempt  to  show  how  a  young  person  must  view  and  understand 
the  poets  there  is  almost  a  defense  of  the  fabulous  in  literature. 
There  are,  he  says,  two  sources  of  fiction  in  poetry:  there  are 
poets  who  lie  willingly,  and  others  who  lie  unwillingly.  "They 
do  it  wnth  their  wills,  because  they  find  strict  truth  too  rigid  to 
comply  with  that  sweetness  and  gracefulness  of  expression,  which 
most  are  taken  with,  so  readily  as  fiction  doth."  Fiction  can 
always  avoid  distasteful  truth  by  substituting  pleasing  make- 
believe;  and  not  even  the  devices  of  rhetoric,  diction,  and  the 


»8  Demetrius  on  Style,  ed.  W.  E.  Eoberts,  Cambridge  1902 ;  see  pp.  49-64 
for  discussion  of  date  and  authorship. 

100  lb.,   §  52,   p.   97. 

101  lb.,  §§  124-127,  pp.  129-131. 

102  7b.,  §§  1.57,  158,  pp.  145-147. 

103  Julifin,  Ag.  the  Cynic  Heradius,  227A. 
10*  iforais,  Socrates'  Daemon,  §9. 

lOB  Lives. 

106  E.g.,  Eoman  Questions,  Nos.  5,  21. 

107  Goodwin 's  ed.  of  the  Morals,  Boston  1883. 


GREEK  CRITICISM  OF  FICTION  AND  MARVEL.  43 

like,  can  compare  with  it  in  giving  elegance  and  grace  to  a  com- 
position. "In  poems  we  are  more  apt  to  be  smitten  and  fall  in 
love  with  a  probable  fiction  than  with  the  greatest  accuracy  that 
can  be  observed  in  measures  and  phrases,  where  there  is  nothing 
fabulous  or  fictitious  joined  with  it."  To  him,  as  to  other  Greek 
critics,  fiction  and  poetry  are  almost  synonymous  terms.  "For 
though  we  have  known  some  sacrifices  performed  without  pipes 
and  dances,  yet  we  own  no  poetry  which  is  utterly  destitute  of 
fable  and  fiction.'.'  The  verses  of  the  philosophers  are  accounted 
speeches  which  have  "borrowed  from  poetry  the  chariot  of 
verse. "  In  a  word,  '  *  the  witchcraft  of  poetry  consists  in  fiction. ' ' 
But  wherever  there  occurs  anything  absurd  about  the  gods  or 
virtue,  the  youth  who  knows  this  nature  of  poetry  will  not  have 
his  belief  unduly  affected.  When  he  meets  with  any  such  mar- 
vellous story  as  that  of  "Neptune's  rending  the  earth  to  pieces 
and  discovering  the  infernal  regions,  he  will  be  able  to  check  his 
fears  of  the  reality  of  any  such  accident.""^ 

Unwilling  fictions,  Plutarch  would  have  it,  are  those  which 
"express  the  judgment  and  belief  of  poets  who  thereby  discover 
and  suggest  to  us  the  ignorant  or  mistaken  apprehensions  they 
had  of  the  Deities."  Often  they  put  upon  these  erroneous 
beliefs  fictitious  colors  to  recommend  them  to  their  fellows.  But 
"almost  everyone  knows  nowadays  that  the  portentous  fancies 
and  contrivances  of  stories  concerning  the  state  of  the  dead  are 
accommodated  to  popular  apprehensions, — that  the  spectres  and 
phantasms  of  burning  rivers  and  horrid  regions  and  terrible 
tortures  expressed  by  frightful  names  are  all  mixed  with  fable 
and  fiction,  as  poison  with  food. ' '  Here,  again,  the  youth  is  com- 
forted by  the  knowledge  that  it  is  not  the  nature  of  poetry  to 
search  out  exact  truth,  and  that  touching  such  things  as  these  it 
is  after  all  impossible  to  know  anything  at  all  for  a  certainty. ^°* 

It  will  be  noticed  that  Plutarch  is  less  kindly  disposed 
toward  this  second  kind  of  fiction.  But  in  both  cases,  and  this 
is  the  great  point  to  be  observed,  the  author  solves  the  moral 
difficulty  not  by  a  censorship,  such  as  Plato  would  have  estab- 
lished, but  by  going  to  poetry  itself  and  discovering  there  that 

108  Op.  cit.,  II,  pp.  45-47    (§2). 
100/6.,  pp.  47-49   (§2). 


44  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEVELLOUS. 

the  nature  and  purposes  of  literary  truth  (though  he  does  not 
name  the  principle  as  Aristotle  did)  are  different  from  those  of 
moral  veracity.  Here,  indeed,  is  a  philosophy  of  fiction.  Proba- 
bility, as  he  observes,""  is  the  nature  of  poetic  truth ;  and  to  this 
remark,  which  is  almost  a  statement  of  the  psychological  basis 
of  fiction,  is  added"^  a  discussion  of  the  imitative  nature  of 
poetry,  from  which  the  nature  and  usage  of  fiction  are  deduced. 
The  force  of  imitation,  he  says,  lies  in  probability;  hence  poetic 
fiction  does  not,  so  far  as  it  presents  what  in  view  of  the  facts  of 
human  nature  is  probable,  depart  altogether  from  truth.^^^  As 
regards  the  purpose  of  poetic  truth,  there  is  the  clear  statement 
at  the  outset  that  strict  truth  is  ''too  rigid  to  comply  with  that 
sweetness  and  gracefulness  of  expression  which  most  are  taken 
with."  For  beauty  and  grace,  for  the  purpose  of  Pindar's 
'Charis,'  for  variety  and  multiplicity  of  contrivance  wherewith 
"poetry,  waiving  the  truth  of  things,  does  most  labor  to  beautify 
its  fictions,""^ — for  these  appeals  to  sense  and  imagination,  does 
poetry  adorn  itself  in  fiction.  "Variety  bestows  upon  fable  all 
that  is  pathetical,  unusual,  and  surprising,  and  thereby  makes  it 
more  taking  and  graceful ;  whereas  what  is  void  of  variety  is  un- 
suitable to  the  nature  of  fable,  and  so  raiseth  no  passions  at 
all.""*  But  he  has  put  all  this  in  one  most  informing  phrase — 
for  our  search,  a  phrase  immortal,  side  by  side  with  Pindar's 
Xapt'i  — '  *  the  witchcraft  of  poetry  consists  in  fiction. ' ' 

Thus,  with  a  professed  disapproval  of  the  allegorical  method 
of  solving  the  moral  problem  of  fiction,  and  by  confessedly  going 
to  the  poets  themselves  for  their  own  interpretation,"**  Plutarch, 
though  an  inveterate  moralist,  took  much  the  same  step  as  the 
scientist  Aristotle;  and  he  went  even  further  than  the  Stagirite 
in  carefully  and  explicitly  linking  the  principle  of  fiction  to 
that    of    imitation    through    probability,    and    indicating    more 


110  See  above,  p.  111. 
iii§§3ff. 

112  7b.,  p.  66,  §  7. 

113  lb.,  p.  66,  §  7. 

11*  Loc.  cit. 

115  Ih.,  §  4.  It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  in  this  searching  of  the 
poets  for  their  own  interpretations  he  lays  himself  open  in  §  4  to  the  charge 
of  making  "a  peck  o'  thy  own  words  out  o'  a  pint  o'  the  Bible's." 


GREEK  CRITICISM  OF  FICTION  AND  MARVEL.  45 

clearly  the  aesthetic  function  of  variety  subserved  by  the  fable. 
But  he  made  no  advance  in  the  matter  of  definitely  separating 
the  ordinary  fiction  of  artistic  narration  from  that  particular  and 
stranger  aspect  of  the  thing  called  marvellous.  His  examples 
include  what  is  distinctly  wonderful  and  portentous,  as  may  be 
seen  from  the  quotations  above  ;^^*'  they  also  include,  side  by  side 
with  these,  fictions  of  the  lesser,  more  ordinary  kind.  The  whole 
burden  of  the  discourse,  however,  points  rather  toward  the 
former  than  the  latter, — rather  toward  the  exaggeration  that 
surprises,  than  toward  the  minor  verisimilitude,  the  complete 
illusion  of  which  leaves  us  undisturbed. 

The  De  Siihlimitate^'^''  offers  two  testimonies  toward  the 
criticism  of  the  marvellous.  First,  it  carries  on  the  discussion, 
already  observed  in  Demetrius,^^^  of  the  use  of  wonderful  ex- 
aggeration to  heighten  the  effect  of  sublimity  and  climax. 
Examples  of  such  sublimity  are  quoted  from  Homer;  their 
effect  is  said  to  be  overpowering.  Yet,  in  the  next  breath,  the 
old  moral  view  stalks  across  the  stage.  "But  although  all  these 
things  are  awe-inspiring,  yet  from  another  point  of  view,  if  they 
be  not  taken  allegorically,  they  are  altogether  impious,  and 
violate  our  sense  of  w^hat  is  fitting. '  '^^^  In  spite  of  this  umbrati- 
cality,  however,  the  author  has  the  penetration  to  point  out  that 
in  the  case  of  marvels  the  poet  must  be  granted  greater  license 
than  the  orator.  In  recommending  the  use  of  images  to  gain 
sublimity,  it  is  held  that  the  image  [^avraa-ia)  has  one  purpose 
with  the  orators  (that  of  vivid  description,  ivdpyua) ,  another 
with  the  poets  (that  of  enthrallment,  eWXT^fi?).'^"  The  poets 
have  a  tendency  to  fabulous  exaggeration,  and  they  transcend 
the  credible  at  all  points.  In  oratory  the  image  should  always 
have  reality  and  truth. ^^^ 

This  distinction  between  poetical  and  oratorical  imagery, 
with  its  allowance  to  the  former  of  something  of  marvellous 


116  See  above,  p.  111. 

117  Ed.,  W.  E.  Roberts,  Cambridge  1899.     For  date,  see  p.  16;   author- 
ship, pp.  1  ff. 

118  See  above,  p.  110. 

119  Op.  cit.,  §  IX,  6,  7. 

120  Ih.,  §  XV,  2. 

121  lb.,  §XV,  7,  8. 


46  STUDIES  IN  TEE  MARVELLOUS. 

exaggeration,  though  given  with  an  air  of  some  doubt,  as  Pro- 
fessor Saintsbury  remarks,'--  is  nevertheless  a  valuable  contribu- 
tion to  the  theory  of  the  wonderful.  It  is  also  to  be  noted  that  this 
is  a  distinction  based  on  empirical  evidence, — not  upon  philo- 
sophical generalization. 

The  second  testimony  of  the  De  Suhlimitate  is  contained  in 
the  famous  comparison  of  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey.'-^  This  is 
the  general  proposition :  the  use  of  marvellous  tales  in  literature 
is  the  sign  of  a  declining  genius.  The  Odyssey  suggests  this 
observation.  The  special  token  of  Homer's  old  age  and  declin- 
ing powers  is  held  to  be  a  love  of  marvellous  tales  {tcx^lKoixvOov). 
"You  seem  to  see  [in  the  Odyssey]  the  ebb  and  flow  of  greatness, 
and  a  fancy  roving  in  the  fabulous  and  incredible,  as  though  the 
ocean  were  withdrawing  into  itself  and  was  being  laid  bare 
within  its  own  confines.  (14)  In  saying  this  I  have  not  forgotten 
the  tempests  in  the  Odyssey  and  the  story  of  the  Cyclops  and  the 
like.  If  I  speak  of  old  age,  it  is  nevertheless  the  old  age  of 
Homer.  The  fabulous  element  (to  /xvOlkov)  ,  however,  prevails 
throughout  this  poem  over  the  real.  The  object  of  this  digres- 
sion has  been,  as  I  said,  to  show  how  easily  great  natures  in 
their  decline  are  sometimes  diverted  into  absurdity,  as  in  the 
incident  of  the  wine-skin  and  of  the  men  who  were  fed  like  swine 
by  Circe  .  .  .  ,  and  of  Zeus  like  a  nestling  nurtured  by  the 
doves,  and  of  the  hero  who  was  without  food  for  ten  days  upon 
the  wreck,  and  of  the  incredible  tale  of  the  slaying  of  the  suitors. 
For  what  else  can  we  term  these  things  than  veritable  dreams  of 
Zeus?"'^*  Here,  indeed,  our  wonder  is  that  the  hardships  of  the 
hero  and  the  slaying  of  the  suitors  should  be  thought  absurd. 
We,  few  of  us,  are  yet  so  sophisticated  as  to  perceive  absurdity 
behind  these  marvels.  The  author's  condemnation  is,  of  a  truth, 
sweeping  enough.  Childishness!  That  is  the  judgment  offered 
by  the  reputed  Longinus  when  the  question  is  one  of  the  employ- 
ment of  marvels  in  literature.  We  shall  find  the  criticism 
repeated  seventeen  hundred  years  later. 


i^^Hist.  Crit.,  I,  166. 

123  Op.  cit.,  §  IX,  11-15. 

124  Tr.  Roberts,  pp.  66-69. 


GEEEK  CRITICISM  OF  FICTION  AND  MARVEL.  47 

The  remaining  notices  of  Greek  criticism  of  the  marvellous 
are  of  little  importance,  and  should  be  discussed  briefly.  The  two 
great  names  after  Aristotle — Plutarch  and  Longinus — are  suc- 
ceeded by  a  roster  to  which  belong  hardly  any  other  than  the 
names  of  minor  show-rhetoricians,  from  Dion  Chrysostom  of 
Plutarch's  own  century,  to  Julian  in  the  fourth;  under  Byzantine 
criticism  Professor  Saintsbury  in  his  History  of  Criticism  men- 
tions only  three  Greek  names, — Photius  of  the  ninth,  Tzetzes  of 
the  twelfth,  and  John  of  Sicily  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Several 
of  the  recurrent  subjects  upon  which  these  critics  exercised  their 
ingenuities,  and  which  touch  the  subject  of  the  marvellous  more 
or  less  indirectly,  may  be  mentioned.  Of  direct  contribution  to 
the  subject  there  is  practically  nothing. 

The  old  quarrel  between  Plato  and  the  Poets  is  not  lost  to 
sight.  Maximus  Tyrius^^^  discusses  "Whether  Plato  was  right 
in  banishing  Homer  from  his  Republic?",  and  endeavors  to 
harmonize  poetry  and  philosophy.  Sextus  Empiricus,  the  phil- 
osopher, maintains  that  the  sayings  of  the  poets  are  harmful, 
useless,  or  of  but  little  use.^^e 

The  interpretation  of  myth  and  mythic  elements  by  rational- 
ization and  allegory  continues.  Dion  Chrysostom  accounts  for 
the  artists'  representation  of  the  sun  and  moon  in  human  form 
by  attributing  to  those  bodies  an  intelligence  which  the  artist  can 
adequately  represent  only  by  foregoing  realistic  fiifir]aL<;  and 
symbolizing  them,  instead,  in  human  form.  This  symbolism,  he 
says,  is  far  above  that  of  the  crude  barbarians  who  see  the  gods 
in  the  form  of  animals.^"  Maximus  Tyrius  recommends  the 
allegorical  interpretation  of  the  poets.  In  the  matter  of  the 
fictitious  nature  of  poetry  the  same  writer  says  that  poetry  is 
"based  on  fictions  as  to  its  arguments. "^-^ 

Philostratus  cannot  away  with  Homer's  airCOava.  He  remarks 
that  for  heroes  to  be  8€/ca7r7;;^€i?  is  pleasant  enough  in  mythology, 

125  Ed.,  Reiske,  2  vols.,  Leipzig  1774.  I  have  not  been  able  to  gain 
access  to  the  books,  and  have  relied  on  Professor  Saintsbury 's  informa- 
tion  {Eist.  Crit.  I,  117). 

120  Ed.,  Fabricius,  Leipzig  1840,  Vol.  II,  pp.  114,  115  (Adversu^  Gram- 
maticos,  Lib.  I,  Cap.  XIII,  §§292-296). 

^^'' Dion  Chrysostom,  ed.,  J.  De  Arnim,  Berlin  1893,  Disc,  xii  (' OXvairinds) , 
§§56ff.  (Vol.  I,  171ff.). 
i28ifisf.  Crit,  I,  117. 


48  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABFELLOUS. 

but  as  a  matter  of  fact  unbelievable.  This  hint  of  two  possible 
points  of  view  is  followed  by  a  long  jeu  d' esprit  on  the  evidences 
of  giants, — an  excuse  for  a  collection  of  marvellous  tales.^^* 
Sextus  Empiricus  flatly  declares  that  poetry  is  absolutely  useless 
so  long  as  it  deals  in  feWi?  tcrTO/aiat?."" 

But  the  mass  of  discussion  among  these  rhetoricians,  so  far  as 
the  wonderful  is  concerned,  is  taken  up  with  the  discussion  of  the 
orator's  use  of  the  fable  (^fivdo<i).  All  the  Progymnasmata 
('Composition-Books,'  as  Professor  Saintsbury  calls  them^^^ 
discuss  the  proper  use  of  the  Aesop-like  fable  for  rhetorical 
illustration  and  variety;  and  the  discussions  become  as  tiresome 
and  useless  for  our  purposes,  as  do  the  other  divigations  of  the 
rhetoricians  for  the  student  of  general  literary  criticism.  This 
minor  type  of  the  fable,  a  rhetorical  type  of  fiction,  and,  in  one 
sense,  of  the  marvellous,  was  already  centuries  old.  Aristotle 
discusses  fables  as  a  division  of  proof  by  examples,  and  cites  as 
illustrations  Stesichorus  on  Phalaris,  and  Aesop  at  Samos.  He 
remarks  that  fables  are  suited  to  popular  oratory, — an  echo  of  the 
disesteem  in  which  the  wonder-tales  were  held  by  the  cultured."* 
Demetrius,  as  we  have  already  observed,  recommended  the 
piquant  use  of  fables. 

Turning  to  Walz'^^  we  find  the  rhetoricians  differentiating 
fivdo'i  and  Scqyrjfia.  MvOo'i  for  the  orator  is  a  short  story,  false 
(^|revB^<i) ,  but  probable  (Tri'^ai/o?).  !!&)<?  B'av  <y4vono  Tridavof; 
*'Av  ra  TrpoaijKovra  Trpdy/xaTa  rot?  TrpoacoTroi'i  airoSiBco/jLev 
(Hermogenes,  Cap.  I).  The  hi-qyrifxa^  on  the  other  hand,  must 
be  eKdeaiv  irpdyfiaTO'i  <y€yov6TO<; ^  ?)  o)?  yeyovorof  (Hermog. 
Cap.  2).  The  fable  is  used  by  the  orator  to  illustrate  and  drive 
home  his  point,  but  o  ixvdo<;  nroiriTOiv  fxkv  TrporfKde  (Apthonius  I) ; 
and  was  used  by  the  ancients,  as  e.g.,  by  Hesiod  rov  Trj<;  aT]86vo<; 
eliroiv  {Epy.  201) -(Hermog.  I  and  Theon.  HI) .  Thus,  a  relation 
is  suggested  between  the  fable  of  the  orator  and  the  allegorical 
use  of   myths  by  the  poets.     The  iJLv0o<i  is  called  Sybaritican, 


i'^^  Fhilostratus,  ed.,  Kayser  (Teubner).    Heroic  Dialogue,  §§  667,  668. 

130  Op.  cit.,  loc.  cit.,  §  278. 

131  m.st.  Crit.,  I,  96. 

132  Aristotle,  Rhetoric  II,  20  (tr.,  Well. Ion,  p.  182). 
lasWalz,  Ehetores  Graeci,  Stuttgart,  etc.  1832. 


GREEK  CEITICISM  OF  FICTION  AND  MARVEL.  49 

Cilician,  or  Cj'prian,  according  to  its  origin;  but  to  Aesop  most 
are  attributed  (Hermog.  I).  It  is  of  three  kinds  and  uses: 
TO  fiGv  iari  Xo'ytKov^  to  Be  tjOikov^  to  8e  /j-lktov  (Apthonius  I). 
Examples  for  the  orator's  use  are  conveniently  appended. 

All  this  is  at  any  rate  an  acknowledgment,  a  recommendation, 
of  a  literary,  distinctly  rhetorical  (in  the  ancient  sense  of  the 
term)  use  of  fiction,  and,  by  the  way,  of  the  marvellous.  The 
fables  given  as  examples  contain  elements  of  wonder.  Here  was 
the  evolution,  at  an  early  time  and  long  continuing,  of  a  distinct 
and  technical  type  of  marvellous  narrative;  and,  what  is  most 
noteworthy,  it  was  a  development  within  prose  composition, — a 
sort  of  incidental,  illustrative  use  of  prose  fiction.  With  it  there 
went  a  critical  theory, — something  that  did  not  accompany  the 
geographical  romances  of  Plato,  Euhemerus,  and  Diodorus,^^*  or 
the  fictions  of  Philostratus.^^^ 

Julian  (c.  331-363  A.D.)  undertakes,  in  the  oration  against 
the  Cynic  Heraclius,^^"  to  trace  the  genealogy  of  the  fables,  but 
supposes  that  they,  like  the  other  kinds  of  art,  were  invented  by 
the  people  among  whom  they  are  found  ( §  2 ) .  These  fables 
were  adapted  to  the  child-like  intelligence  of  earlier  generations ; 
but  the  poets  added  the  apologue  (6  alvo<;) ,  which  differs  from  the 
fable  in  that  while  the  latter  is  addressed  to  children,  the  former 
is  intended  for  men, — for  their  enlightenment  as  well  as  for  their 
pleasure  ( §  3 ) .  The  Oration  continues,  in  a  fashion  equally  un- 
profitable for  us,  with  a  discussion  of  the  place  of  m^i;hography 
with  reference  to  morality  and  theology,  the  kinds  of  mystery- 
fables  and  their  comparison,  the  pedagogy  of  Plutarch  in  the 
matter,  and  concludes  (§§  17  ff.)  with  an  example  of  the  fable. 
The  whole  discussion  is  religious  rather  than  literary,  and  is  all 
under  the  neo-platonic  view.  It  serves  as  a  type  of  the  rhetorical 
and  mystical  discussion  of  fable,  but  contributes  nothing  to  the 
theory  of  fiction  or  wonder. 

Of  the  three  Byzantines  noted  by  Professor  Saintsburj-,  the 
testimonies    are    equally    without    value.      The    Bibliotheca    of 


134  See  Chassang,  Histeire  du  Roman,  Part  2,  Ch.  IV. 

135  See  Chassang,  Appollonius  de  Tyane,  Paris  1862. 

^SG  Emperetir  Julien,  (Euvres  Coinplclcs,  tr.,  E.  Talbot,  Paris  1863.     Text 
ed.,  Hertlein  (Teubner). 


50  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

Photius^^^  includes  notices  of  quite  a  number  of  works  of  fiction, 
or  collections  of  wonderful  tales,  but  the  comment  upon  them  is 
without  significance."*    Tzetzes  and  John  of  Sicily  offer  nothing. 

The  gist  of  Greek  criticism  of  fiction  and  the  marvellous 
has  now  been  presented :  the  present  chapter  may  be  brought  to 
its  conclusion  by  a  brief  summary  of  the  more  general  results  of 
the  inquiry.  The  mere  mentioning  of  the  following  points  will  be 
enough  to  indicate  their  derivation  from  the  facts  already  pre- 
sented, and  their  bearing  upon  the  problem  of  the  marvellous. 

(1)  Greek  criticism  of  the  marvellous  is  for  the  most  part  an 
undifferentiated  element  in  Greek  criticism  of  the  fictitious  in 
the  poets.  In  most  of  this  criticism  there  seems  to  be  little  or  no 
change  of  emphasis  when  the  illustrations  pass  from  the  minor 
aspects  of  fiction  to  the  decidedly  marvellous.  Both  are  criticized 
in  like  fashion  in  the  same  breath.  In  some  cases,  however, 
notably  in  Aristotle  and  Plutarch,  the  primary  reference  seems 
to  be  to  the  distinctly  prodigious. 

(2)  Greek  criticism  of  the  fictitious  arises  through  a  criticism 
of  Greek  mythology.  This  myth-criticism  begins  with  a  moral 
expostulation  with  the  impieties  and  improprieties  of  many  of  the 
marvellous  details  of  the  god-stories,  extends  to  a  moral  attack 
upon  the  fiction  of  mythology  and  of  the  poets  in  general,  and  is 
given  something  of  an  economic  aspect  by  Plato,  who  is  also  the 
chief  supporter  of  its  ethical  character.  This  criticism  is  de- 
livered by  the  philosophers,  historians,  and,  in  less  degree,  by 
some  of  the  poets  themselves. 

(3)  Various  solutions  are  offered  of  the  difficulties  and  per- 


isT  Photius,  Migne,  Patrologia  Graeca,  Vols.  3,  4  (103,  104). 

138  Vol.  3,  Col.  414,  475.  Photius  attributes  a  certain  school  of  fiction 
(lamblichus,  Achilles  Tatius,  Heliodorus,  and  Damascius)  to  Lucian  and 
Lucius.  In  Col.  478  is  his  opinion  of  the  school.  His  notice  (Col.  413) 
of  AAMA2KI0T  HEPI  RAPAAOSfiN  AOFOI  (consisting  of  four  books,  one 
each  on  the  following  subjects, — of  incredible  fictions,  of  incredible  stories 
aV;out  demons,  of  incredible  tales  of  souls  apjicaring  after  death,  of  in- 
credible things  of  nature)  introduces  to  our  notice  a  work  which  had  many 
companions  in  antiquity.  Several  of  these,  collections  of  marvellous 
anecdotes,  have  been  edited  by  A.  Westermann,  raradoxographoi,  Bruns- 
wick 1839.  The  most  famous  of  them  all  is  Pseudo-Aristotelian  IIEPI 
GATMASinX  AKOTZMATON,  ed.  Beckmann,  Cottingcn  1786.  Cf.  with 
these  the  M ythoc/raphoi  Graeci,  ed.  Westerman,  Brunswick  1843. 


GBEEK  CRITICISM  OF  FICTION  AND  MARVEL.  51 

plexities  raised  by  the  impious  and  fictitious  (marvellous)  ele- 
ments in  mythology.  Eationalization,  allegory,  euhemerism,  are 
broached;  they  are  all  philosophical  and  do  not  recognize  the 
problem  in  any  other  light  than  that  of  philosophy  and  religion. 

(4)  Inasmuch  as  the  moral  criticism  and  the  philosophical 
solutions  are  necessarily  based  upon  Homer  and  Hesiod,  these 
poets  themselves,  and,  by  analogy,  all  poets,  are  censured  and 
censored.  Thus,  a  criticism  of  poetry,  that  is  to  say,  literary 
criticism  itself,  begins  to  develop  out  of  the  ethical  criticism  of 
marvel  and  fiction.  But  so  long  as  the  ethical  preoccupation 
continues  literary  criticism  does  not  realize  its  own  separate  ends. 

(5)  At  last,  with  Aristotle,  a  real  literary  criticism  develops, 
which  is  divorced  from  moral  philosophy.  This  new  criticism,  in 
turn,  attacks  the  problem  of  fiction,  and  especially  the  marvellous 
in  fiction,  as  a  purely  literary  problem.  An  aesthetic  has  suc- 
ceeded the  ethical  outlook.  Thus  is  developed  the  theory  of  poetic 
truth,  under  which  the  marvellous  assumes  its  proper  place. 

(6)  The  successors  of  Aristotle  mix  the  real  literary  criticism 
he  established  with  the  older  moral  expostulation  and  interpreta- 
tion.   Plutarch  is  the  most  important  name  after  Aristotle. 

(7)  Throughout  the  course  of  critical  commentary  run  cer- 
tain minor  doctrines,  as  they  have  been  called,  w^hich  gather 
force  by  repetition.  Such  are  the  * Charis-doctrine '  (Pindar, 
Aristotle,  Demetrius  {De  Elocutio),  Plutarch,  etc.)  ;  and  the 
doctrine  of  sublimity  and  climax,  closely  related  to,  if  not 
identical  with,  the  'Charis-doctrine'  (Demetrius,  Longinus). 
Both  these  doctrines,  by  justifying  the  use  of  the  marvellous  for 
the  literary  purposes  of  beauty  and  force,  contribute  to  the 
aesthetic  liberation  of  the  wonderful. 

(8)  Finally,  it  may  be  remarked  that  these  facts  concerning 
the  development  of  a  literary  criticism  of  the  marvellous,  illus- 
trate at  the  same  time  a  stage  in  the  history  of  the  marvellous. 
To  describe  that  stage  would  be  to  repeat  the  details  of  the 
rise  of  that  new  Greek  consciousness  by  which  the  marvels  of  a 
believed  religion  passed  through  the  transitional  epoch  of  ethical 
distrust  and  criticism,  to  the  condition  of  accepted  aesthetic 
illusion.  Literature  then  inherited  the  marvellous  a  second  time, 
— not,  as  at  first,  from  religious  faith,  but  from  an  aesthetic 
reconciliation  of  fact  and  fiction. 


52  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF    WONDER. 

Inadequacy  of  previous  descriptions  of  wonder — States 
allied  to  wonder:  (1)  surprise,  astonishment,  and  curiosity; 
(a)  surprise  differentiated  logically,  as  in  sudden  and  unusual 
experiences;  (b)  surprise  differentiated  physiologically,  as  in 
short  and  long  "circuits";  (c)  passing  of  surprise  [through 
astonishment,  at  times]  to  curiosity  and  wonder;  (d)  relations 
of  curiosity,  explanation,  and  wonder;    (e)  six  typical  cases; 

(f)  differentiation  of  the  improbable  and  the  impossible,  and 
their  relations  to  wonder  and  marvel  and  to  the  six  typical  cases; 

(g)  the  marvellous:  (2)  belief  and  wonder;  (a)  definition; 
(ft)  degree  of  belief  consonant  with  wonder;  (c)  the  ridicu- 
lous; (d)  belief  and  the  standard  of  ideal  possibility:  (3) 
imagination  and  the  marvellous:  (4)  fear  and  marvel:  (5) 
pleasure  and  marvel. — Summary. 

In  spite  of  the  large  part  that  wonder  has  played  in  the 
history  of  ideas,  especially  in  the  realm  of  religious  thought 
and  belief,  and  although  its  genetic  relation  to  reflection  and 
philosophy  was  a  truism  in  the  days  of  Plato^  and  Aristotle,^ 
its  serious  investigation  has  hardly  reached  beyond  the  descrip- 
tive stage  in  which  Descartes  left  it  in  his  Traite  des  Passions.^ 
Bain  is  only  a  little  fuller  in  his  description  than  Descartes. 
"Surprise  and  wonder,"  he  says,  "are  due  to  the  clash  of  op- 
posing states;  the  intrusion  of  something  extraordinary  or  un- 
familiar, through  which  is  incurred  a  shock  that  may  be  con- 


1  Plato,  Theaetctus,  §  155. — ' '  For  wonder  is  the  feeling  of  a  philos- 
opher, and  philosophy  begins  in  wonder. ' ' 

2  Aristotle,  Metaphysics,  I,  2,  9  (Bekker). 

3  Art.  LIII,  L 'admiration: — Lorsque  la  premiere  rencontre  do  quelque 
objet  nous  surprend,  et  que  nous  le  jugcons  etre  nouveau,  ou  fort  different 
de  ce  que  nous  connaissions  aujjaravant,  ou  bion  de  ce  que  nous  siipposions 
qu'il  devait  etre,  cela  fait  quo  nous  I'admirons  ot  on  soinnios  otones;  ot 
pour  ce  que  cela  pout  arriver  avant  que  nous  connaissions  aucuncment  si 
cot  objet  nous  est  convenable  ou  s'il  ne  1 'est  pas,  il  me  somhlc  quo  1 'ad- 
miration est  la  premiere  de  toutes  les  passions:  et  ello  n 'a  point  de  con- 
trairo,  k  cause  quo  si  1 'objet  que  so  presonte  n'a  rien  on  aoi  qui  nous  sur- 
prcnne,  nous  n  'en  sommes  aucunemont  emus,  ot  nous  le  consid^rons  sans 
passion. 


TRE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WONDEE.  53 

sidered  as  something  beyond  mere  sensation."*  It  is  perhaps 
somewhat  unfortunate  that  the  intrusion  of  the  unfamiliar 
object  should  be  regarded  as  a  state  of  mind  in  conflict  with 
another  pre-existing  state;  for  one  must  ask  where  the  strange 
state  originated,  whence  it  gathered  its  support  and  "fringe," 
and  if,  when  once  constituted,  it  is  not  by  itself  the  wonder 
or  surprise.  Moreover,  why  the  extraordinary  or  unfamiliar 
image  should  be  felt  as  an  intrusion,  and  how  it  is  so  felt,  are 
questions  nicely  glossed,  or  at  any  rate  rendered  all  the  more 
tantalizing  by  the  vague  phrase,  "through  which  is  incurred  a 
shock  that  may  be  considered  as  something  beyond  mere  sensa- 
tion."  A  little  further  on  Bain  recurs  to  the  subject  in  con- 
nection with  his  definition  of  novelty.  Novelty  he  explains  as 
the  superior  force  of  stimuli  at  their  first  application.^  On 
the  other  hand,  wonder,  he  avers,  is  founded  on  relativity,  and 
involves  more  than  simple  novelty.  While  surprise  is  one  degree 
beyond  novelty  as  being  a  shock  which  is  not  only  novel  but 
also  unexpected,  involving  contradiction  and  conflict,  wonder, 
on  the  other  hand,  contains  surprise  with  the  new  effect  of  con- 
templating something  that  rises  above  human  experience  and 
that  elevates  us  to  a  feeling  of  superiority.  Often,  though,  the 
object  of  contemplation  may  be  something  that  falls  decidedly 
beneath  the  ordinary.® — But  we  may  easily  question  these  dicta 
on  novelty  and  surprise;  and  the  relation  between  surprise  and 
wonder  seems  too  glibly  stated. 

The  newer  psychology,  with  its  less  essay-like  character,  is 
almost  equally  vague  upon  the  subject  of  wonder.  The  simple 
character  and  early  appearance  of  the  emotion,  hinted  at  by 
Descartes,  are  insisted  upon  by  Wundt^  and  by  Preyer.^  Sully 
writes:  "The  intense  craving  for  the  wonderful,  the  love  of 
the  marvellous,  has  something  of  an  intoxicating  effect,  and 
paralyzes  the  impulses  of  inquiry.  But  in  its  moderate  degrees 
the  emotion  of  wonder  is  the  natural  stimulus  to  further  in- 
quiry.    Wonder  lives  by  isolating  the  new  fact  or  circumstance 


*  Bain,   TJie  Emotions  and  the  Will,  London   1875,  p.  69. 

5  Op.  cit.,  p.  83. 

6  7d.,  p.   85. 

7  Physiol.  Psychol,  II,  18,  332. 

8  Die  Seele  des  Eindes,  Leipzig  1890,  pp.  108,  134. 


54  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABFELLOUS. 

from  the  familiar  order  of  experience."^  "Wonder,  he  further 
remarks,  is  a  more  complex  affair  than  surprise,  and  implies 
comparison  and  recognition  of  contrast.  "What  is  wholly  new 
or  unexpected  always  surprises  us,  but  does  not  necessarily 
excite  wonder.  "^°  The  notice  continues  with  a  few  words  upon 
the  pleasurable  aspect  of  w'onder  and  also  upon  its  relation  to 
fear  and  admiration.  In  conclusion,  its  complex  nature  in  ref- 
erence to  intellectual  emotion  is  set  forth:  it  involves  fixing  of 
attention  at  the  stage  of  surprise,  discrimination  further  on, 
may  interfere  with  inquiry,  but  often  is  the  starting  point  for 
discovery.  As  cap-stone  to  such  a  general  and  unsatisfactory 
account.  Professor  Dewey's  statement  may  well  be  quoted  here. 
"It  may  come  about  that  we  grow  so  used  to  our  customary 
environment  that  we  feel  wonder  only  when  the  shock  of  sur- 
prise strikes  us,  but  the  normal  healthy  attitude  of  the  mind 
is  wonder  at  all  facts,  familiar  or  novel,  until  it  has  mastered 
their  meaning  and  made  itself  at  home  among  them."" 

Professor  James'  notice  is  equally  vague,  and  even  more 
meagre,  though  it  does  suggest,  as  another  line  of  inquiry,  the 
instinctive  sensory  susceptibility  of  animals  to  novel  stimuli. 
"Already  pretty  low  down  among  vertebrates,"  he  says,  "we 
find  that  any  object  may  excite  attention  provided  it  be  only 
novel,  and  that  attention  may  be  followed  by  approach  and 
exploration  by  nostril,  lips,  or  touch."  (Intervene  some  remarks 
upon  curiosity  and  fear  as  antagonistic  principles  in  such  ex- 
ploration.) "Some  such  susceptibility  for  being  excited  and 
irritated  by  the  mere  novelty,  as  such,  of  any  movable  feature 
of  the  environment  must  form  the  instinctive  basis  of  all  human 
curiosity,  though,  of  course,  the  superstructure  absorbs  contri- 
butions from  so  many  other  factors  of  the  emotional  life  that 
the  original  root  may  be  hard  to  find.  With  what  is  called 
scientific  curiosity,  and  with  metaphysical  wonder,  the  practical 
instinctive  root  has  probably  nothing  to  do.  The  stimuli  here  are 
not  objects,  but  ways  of  conceiving  objects;  and  the  emotions 
and  actions  they  give  rise  to  are  to  be  classed,  with  many  other 


0  Sully,  Outlines  of  Psychology,  London  1885,  pp.  .'522,  523.     Tlie  italics 
are  mine.     See  below,  p.  65. 
10  Loc.  cit. 
"J.  Dewey,  Psychology,  3d.  ed.,  N.  Y.  1899,  p.  304. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WONDEE.  55 

Eesthetic  manifestations,  sensitive  and  motor,  as  incidental  fea- 
tures of  our  mental  life. '  '^-  To  this  valuable  suggestion — ' '  ways 
of  conceiving  objects" — we  shall  recur  below.^^ 

Ribot's^*  contribution  to  the  subject  is  as  suggestive  as  any 
and  as  sketchy  as  all.  He  starts  with  an  "instinct,  a  tendency, 
a  craving" — the  "primitive  craving  for  knowledge"  (conserved 
by  selection  in  the  struggle  for  existence) — and  finds  its  first 
stage  of  development  to  be  surprise.  Surprise  is  "a  special 
emotional  state  which  cannot  be  traced  back  to  any  other,  consist- 
ing of  a  shock,  a  disadaptation,  *  *  *  without  contents,  with- 
out object,  save  a  relation."  From  this  first  stage  he  differen- 
tiates wonder  as  a  second.  Surprise,  he  says,  is  momentary,  a 
disadaptation,  and  is  without  objective  material.  Wonder,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  stable,  a  readaptation,  and  possesses  as  its 
material  some  strange  or  unaccustomed  object.  It  is  the  awak- 
ening of  attention.  The  third  stage  is  the  interrogation,  "What 
is  it?  What  is  the  use  of  it?",  and  consists  in  mental  assimila- 
tion. Finally,  thinks  Ribot,  the  transition  to  the  disinterested, 
non-utilitarian  period  is  "through  the  natural,  innate  inclina- 
tion of  the  human  intellect  towards  the  extraordinary,  the 
strange,  the  marvellous. "'^^ 

In  this  account  there  is,  to  be  sure,  a  suggestive  analysis  of 
the  relations  of  surprise,  wonder,  and  curiosity;  and  the  term 
disadaptation,  in  spite  of  its  linguistic  aw^kwardness,  is  as  con- 
venient as  it  is  illuminating.  Wonder,  however,  and  the  won- 
derful, seem  mixed  in  the  suggestion  of  an  instinct  toward  the 
marvellous;  the  subjective  nature  of  wonder  is  confused  with 
its  objective  reference.^^  Moreover,  the  psychological  genealogy 
of  the  marvellous  is  not  given.  He  does  not  say  that  the  descent 
is  from  innate  curiosity  through  surprise,  wonder,  and  inter- 
rogation; but  simply  adds  a  fourth  stage  of  disinterested  curi- 
osity by  postulating  another  innate,  unnamed  mental  tendency 
toward  the  "extraordinary,  the  strange,  the  marvellous." 
Surely,  this  is  a  loose  statement.     It  may  be  that  the  author's 


I'W.  James,  Psychology,  II,  429. 

13  See  below,  e.cj.,  p.  66. 

14  Eibot,  Psychology  of  the  Emotions,  Lomlon  1897,  pp.  36S-371. 

15  Italics  are  mine. 
10  See  below,  p.  69, 


56  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

idea  is  that  the  love  of  the  marvellous  is  disinterested  curiosity : 
but  even  so  he  is  forced  to  hedge  on  the  word  "disinterested";^' 
and  so  we  are  no  nearer  a  clear  view  of  the  matter.  Even 
impersonal  interest  is  a  questionable  phrase  when  applied  to 
the  interest  in  the  marvellous;  for  the  old  utilitarian,  struggle- 
for-existence  curiosity  must  in  its  investigations  often  have  been 
as  unconscious  of  self-accruing  gains  as  is  the  curiosity  of  a 
modern  chance  visitor  in  mediumistic  circles.  Curiosity,  indeed, 
is  as  often  the  vice  of  the  idle  as  the  virtue  of  the  active, — a 
truism  with  us  no  more  than  with  our  proto-savages, — a  fact  with 
human  beings  no  more  than  w^itli  other  animals.  Finally,  in 
postulating  this  instinct  toward  the  marvellous,  Ribot  gives  us 
no  hint  as  to  its  nature, — whether,  e.g.,  it  be  simple  or  complex. 
What,  may  be  asked  at  once,  is  its  relation  to  the  impulse  to 
exaggerate,  or  to  the  phenomena  of  belief  or  awe?^* 

The  rather  astonishing  failure  of  the  professed  psychologists 
to  explicate  the  important  subject  of  wonder  leaves  the  field 
open  to  original  remark;  and,  in  view  of  the  present  need  of  a 
clear  and  systematic  view  of  the  wonder  state,  it  may  not  be 
presumptuous  for  a  layman  to  hazard  a  few  observations  on 
his  own  responsibility. 

That  wonder,  like  joy  and  hope,  care  and  anger,  is  not  the 
name  of  a  single  process,  but  rather  of  a  class,  "in  which  a 
large  number  of  single  affective  processes  are  grouped  because 
of  certain  common  characteristics,"^^  is  a  statement  that  invites 
conviction.  Indeed,  the  complexity  of  the  psychical  processes 
in  this  case  is  undoubtedly  the  very  fact  that  has  daunted  in- 
vestigators; but  the  common  experience  of  the  state,  its  tremen- 
dous importance  in  the  history  of  ideas  and  institutions,  espe- 
cially in  those  of  a  religious  and  literary  nature,  together  with 
its  affiliations  with  certain  of  the  simplest  and  most  ancient  of 
human  psychoses,  might  easily  convert  the  timidity  of  empir- 
ical observation  to  the  enthusiasm  of  a  real  hope  of  beginning 
the  eclaircissement  of  a  field  of  human  phenomena  that  are  as 


IT  Op.  cit.,  p.  371. 

18  For  other  mention  of  wonder  see:  A.  T.  Ormond,  Dictionary  of 
Phi1o.<!ophy  and  Psychology,  II,  820-21  (a  definition  concerned  mostly  with 
the  religious  aspect  of  wonder)  ;  G.  T.  Ladd,  Psycholoqy,  1894,  pp.  540- 
541;   G.  Spiller,  The  Mind  of  Man,  London   1902,  p.  270. 

le  Wundt,  Outlines  of  Psychology,  Eng.  tr.,  Leipzig  1902,  §  13. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WON  DEE.  57 

intense  in  interest  as  they  have  been  important  in  development. 
The  best  approach  to  the  matter  will  lie  through  an  examina- 
tion in  detail  of  certain  states  closely  allied  to  wonder;  and 
through  a  decision,  in  the  case  of  each  such  state,  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  alliance.  For,  on  the  one  hand,  any  attempt  more 
precise  than  this  to  draw  up  a  typical  state  of  wonder  must  be 
doomed  to  failure  because  of  the  uniqueness,  in  variation,  of 
all  particular  states  of  wonder;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
proposed  approach  will,  by  its  many-sidedness  and  frequent 
perspective,  naturally  afford  a  series  of  checks  and  counter- 
checks for  determining  the  presence  or  absence  of  wonder  states. 
By  contemplating  the  relations  to  wonder  of  surprise,  curiosity, 
belief,  imagination,  fear,  and  pleasure,  there  may  be  gained 
from  a  purely  descriptive  beginning  a  suggestion  for  the  analysis 
of  complex  wonder  states  into  their  elements,  and  also  a  hint 
of  the  physiological  processes  or  conditions  upon  which  their 
prevalence  depends. 

Long  ago  Descartes  indicated  the  primitive  and  elemental 
character  of  surprise  by  placing  it  first  in  the  order  of  the 
"Passions, "-°  though  he  confused  surprise  and  wonder  in  the 
usual  fashion.  The  presence  of  the  state  in  animals,  where  it 
appears  with  all  the  air  of  simple  and  immediate  motor  reac- 
tion, at  once  establishes  its  nature  as  being  far  from  complex.-^ 
What  more  simple,  more  immediate,  than  tlie  startled  movement 
of  wild  creatures,  say  a  herd  of  deer,  when  surprised  in  their 
native  haunts?  Hit  a  drowsy  dog  with  a  well-aimed  stone; 
the  jump  of  surprise  appears  quite  involuntary,  almost  a  pure 
reflex.  There  are  scarcely  any  other  feelings,  except  the  gen- 
eral ones  of  physiological  pleasure  and  pain,  that  have  to  the 
same  extent  immediateness  of  response  for  their  central  char- 
acter, and  completeness  of  motor  activity  for  their  peripheral 
expression.  So  strong  indeed  is  the  latter  characteristic  that  it 
persists  even  into  those  cases  where  the  surprise  has  become 
chiefly  significant  as  a  distinctively  mental  phenomenon.  The 
somatic  reverberation  of  the  Eureka  of  the  staid  scientist  is  a 
matter  of  humorous  comment! 


20  See  above,  p.  120,  note  3. 

21  Cf.  Eibot,  as  cited  above,  p.  123,  note  14. 


58  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEVELLOUS. 

But  what  is  this  thing  called  surprise?  How  is  it  called 
forth  ?  It  may  be  said  to  follow  from  the  interruption  of  a  phys- 
ical or  mental  state,  or  both,  by  the  sudden  or  by  the  unusual. 
If  a  loud  explosion  should  break  in  upon  me  as  I  am  writing 
these  words,  or  if  some  one  should  noiselessly  steal  up.  behind 
me  and  close  his  hands  over  my  eyes,  the  suddenness  of  either 
experience  would  engender  a  state  of  surprise.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  German  servant-girl  would  fall  into  a  similar  state 
if  the  Czar  of  all  the  Russias  were  to  announce  to  her  by  crier, 
with  due  regard  to  mitigating  the  sudden  nature  of  the  news, 
the  unusual  circumstance  that  he  was  about  to  interrupt  her 
ordinary  duties  with  a  morning  visit.  The  novelty  of  such  an 
intention  would  occasion  a  surprise  only  second  to  that  which 
one  might  experience  upon  being  set  down  in  the  land  of  Brob- 
dignag.  Or,  to  take  an  example  that  will  combine  both  the 
sudden  and  the  unusual,  as  in  the  majority  of  cases  they  are 
combined,  who  can  look  out  now  from  the  modern  tavern-porch 
at  the  Grand  Canon  of  the  Colorado  without  picturing  the  thrill- 
ing surprise  of  Cardenas  and  his  Spaniards when,  as  they 

advanced  slowly  over  the  mesas,  suddenly,  without  the  slightest 
hint  of  warning,  they  stood  upon  the  brink  of  that  endless,  cas- 
tellated chasm,  doubly  unusual,  supremely  unique,  to  the  won- 
dering eyes  of  those  old  conquistadores  who  for  weeks  had  seen 
nothing  but  endless  plain  and  mesa.  In  a  word,  it  is  the  un- 
looked  for,  the  unexpected,  whether  because  of  its  suddenness 
or  its  unusualness,  that,  breaking  in  upon  a  state  of  conscious- 
ness not  in  train  for  its  adaptation,  occasions  surprise.  To  use 
Ribot's  ugly  but  convenient  word,  it  is  the  disadaptation  re- 
sulting from  the  unexpected  that  produces  the  feeling  under 
consideration. 

But  there  is  more  to  observe  upon  a  closer  view.  In  the 
first  class  of  the  examples  just  given — i.e.,  in  the  class  that  may 
be  termed  the  "sudden" — the  explosion,  or  the  merry  joker, 
afford  stimuli  that  are  simple,  direct,  and  physical;  and  the 
surprise  is  easily  described  as  the  involuntary  response  to  the 
physical  shock.  For  such  a  reflex  there  needs  no  play  of  any 
save  the  lower  of  the  central  nervous  ganglia.  But  in  the  second 
class  of  examples — the  unusual — though  there  is  still  a  physical 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WONDER.  59 

character  to  the  stimulus,  it  is  no  longer  a  matter  of  simple 
and  direct  shock  obtaining  an  immediate  reflex  from  the  lower 
centers.  If  the  Governor  of  the  State  should  visit  me  this  morn- 
ing, the  mere  sudden  appearing  of  the  man — that,  is  the  mere 
sudden  view  of  him  physically — would  be  the  least  of  the  sur- 
prise, would  quite  possibly  enter  into  it  not  at  all;  but  the 
mental  recognition  of  the  new  relation  so  established,  of  the 
unusualness  of  such  a  visit,  would  give  almost  the  entire  content 
of  the  surprise.  This  reflection  upon  a  relation  involves  a 
course  far  other  than  the  simple,  direct  course  of  the  surprise 
occasioned  by  the  explosion:  the  center  now  concerned  is  the 
chief  ganglionic  center  of  all,  the  cortex  itself.-"  The  action 
here  is  over  an  indirect  and  long  circuit;  and  is  exceedingly 
complex  as  compared  with  the  short  circuit  of  the  explosion 
experience  which,  instead  of  rising  to  the  hemispheres,  passes 
from  the  sense-organ  to  some  lower  nerve-center  and  out  to  the 
muscles.  The  two  processes  are  represented  by  Professor  James' 
diagram  of  the  two  types  of  reaction." 

We  have  thus  two  general  cases  of  surprise,  differentiated 
by  both  logical  and  physiological  means :  the  sudden  type,  in- 
volving the  short  circuit  of  reaction;  and  the  unusual  type,  in- 
volving the  long  circuit  of  reaction  and  the  cognition  of  novelty. 
It  might  be  convenient  to  call  the  former  'physical  surprise,' 
and  the  latter  'mental  surprise.'  Moreover,  it  may  be  noticed 
in  passing,  that  mental  surprise,  as  involving  a  concept,  affords 
material  for  a  wider  expression,  literary  or  otherwise,  than 
the  mere  motor  response  or  inarticulate  cry  of  physical  surprise. 

A  step  further.  In  either  case  the  shock  is  often  so  great 
as  to  produce  an  intense  duration  of  surprise,  or,  stating  it  in 
terms  of  the  organism,  a  state  approximating  temporary  nerv- 
ous paralysis.  This  may  take  place  with,  or  without,  the  added 
ingredient  of  fear;  and  is  generally  denoted  by  the  stronger 
term,  astonishment:  "struck  dumb  with  astonishment"  is  the 
common  phrase.-*     This  must  not,  however,  be  confused  with 


22  Cf.  Sully,  as  quoted  above,  p.  54. 

23  W.  James,  Psychology,  Briefer  Course,  p.  98. 

24  It  might  be  well  to  insist  here  upon  a  differentiation  of  terms.  '  Aston- 
ishment' might  be  limited  to  the  nervous  effects  of  this  paralysis, — 'amaze- 
ment' to  its  mental  effects. 


60  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

wonder.  Often  it  may  be  hard  for  the  individual  to  differen- 
tiate the  two, — to  say  when  he  passes  from  astonishment  to 
wonder;  yet  the  condition  implied  in  the  former  is  anything 
but  wonder.  It  involves  a  complete  cessation  of  all  activity,  a 
blankness  of  mind,  and  a  statue-like  rigidity  of  body,  which  pre- 
clude per  sc  all  possibility  of  any  activity.  On  the  other  hand, 
wonder,  though  it  lacks  the  vi\'id  acti\'ity  of  definite  reasoning, 
is  by  no  means  a  complete  cessation  of  mental  activity.  Un- 
certainty, not  the  paralysis  of  amazement,  characterizes  wonder. 
Johnson  was  not  at  pains  to  distinguish  the  two  when  in  the 
Barribler-^  he  described  wonder  as  "a  pause  of  reason,  a  sudden 
cessation  of  the  mental  progress";  and,  again,  as  the  "gloomy 
quiescence  of  astonishment." 

But  the  state  of  surprise,  whether  it  passes  into  astonishment 
or  not.  is  in  either  case  too  spasmodic  to  keep  its  character  long. 
Activity  and  change  are  as  characteristic  of  surprise  as  is  im- 
mediateness  of  effect.  The  duration  of  any  one  state  is  limited. 
What  state  or  states  may  succeed? 

Consider  first  the  sudden,  or  physical,  case  of  surprise.  If, 
after  the  shock,  weak  or  severe,  the  mind  is  brought  into  opera- 
tion, the  surprise  or  astonishment  passes  somewhat  insensibly, 
that  is  gradually,  into  a  new  state.  Without  such  succession 
of  mental  activity  the  shock  would  entirely  pass  off  in  motor 
discharge, — die  away  in  diminuendo  of  physical  reverberation 
like  the  lessening  waves  of  a  tone  vibration;  with  such  activity 
of  the  mind,  there  supervenes  upon  the  involuntary  attention 
won  by  the  shock  a  new  state,  the  insignia  of  which  are  a  tend- 
ency toward  voluntary  attention  and  the  framing  of  the  ques- 
tion, "What  was  it?"  Where  before  the  whole  process  was 
one  of  mere  neural  activity,  of  what  has  been  called  the  short 
circuit,  the  new  state  means  the  establishment  of  the  longer  loop. 
The  mind  is  endeavoring  to  assimilate  the  physical  experience 
to  its  fund  of  similar  experiences, — to  relate  it,  to  make  adapta- 
tion succeed  disadaptation. 

Of  two  sorts,  however,  may  be  this  attempt  at  adaptation. 
The  mind  may  be  ready  with  some  answer  or  hypothesis  whereby 
the  explosion,  to  keep  the  former  example,  may  be  accounted 


^^Eamblcr,  July  9,  1751. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WONDER.  61 

for.     The   powder  works   have   blown   up   again!      Or   cannon 
are  saluting  some  officer  of  state!     Perhaps  it  is  the  blasting 
for  the  new  tunnel !     The  marshalling  of  these  and  similar  rea°- 
sons,  the  weighing  of  them  in  evidence,  the  passing  from  one 
to  another  and  back  again  in  search  of  the  real  cause,  supple- 
menting them  by  further  inquiries,   by  telephoning  and  con- 
sulting newspapers,— all  this  is  patently  what  is  known  as  curi- 
osity.    But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  mind  is  ready  with  no 
answer  or  hypothesis ;  or  if,  instead  of  definite  hypotheses,  only 
the    vaguest    of    dim    hints    of    possible    causes    flit    ghost-like 
across  the  mind,  and  disappear  irrevocably  into  dimmer  shad- 
ows; or,  finally,  if  the  mind  lacks  sufficient  evidence  for  deter- 
mining  which    of   its    hypotheses    is    correct,    and   so    remains 
puzzled  and  at  a  comparative  standstill,— the  condition  is  one 
of  wonder:  wonder  as  to  what  is  the  cause,  or  as  to  which  of 
several  probable  causes  is  the  real  one.     Similarly,  in  the  ex- 
ample of  the  eyes  being  suddenly  covered  by  the  hands  of  one 
stealing  up  behind,  whenever  there  is,  or  so  long  as  there  is, 
a  possibility  of  discovering  who  the  wag  was,  the  curiosity  of 
the   victim   is   uppermost.     But   if,    conceivably,   there   should 
occur  no  name  of  a  probable  perpetrator,  or  if  one  be  at  his 
wit's  end  to  choose  amongst  many  possible  names,  a  state  of 
wonder  may  be  supposed  to  supervene.     Moreover,  it  should  be 
noted  that  in  either  case — though  we  cannot  say  in  any  case 
of  wonder— yet  in  either  of  these  cases,  or  in  cases  similarly 
constituted  of  sudden  shock,— let  the  solution  be  once  given, 
the  wonder  disappears   immediately.     It  was   another  powder 
mill  smashed  up!     Good,   nothing  strange  there!      Or   it   was 
blasting  in  the  hills !    Ah,  so !    And  the  wonder  dwindles  away. 
The  only  possible  exception  to  this  rule  would  be  such  as  would 
cause  immediately  another  condition  of  surprise,   and  that   a 
condition  of  the  second  or  "unusual"  class.     If,  for  instance, 
the  reply  were,  ''It  was  the  falling  over  of  Ut.  So-and-so  into 
the  bay,"  a  new  and  greater  state  of  surprise,  consequent  upon 
the  nnusnalnoss  of  such  a  proceeding,  would  succeed  the  former. 
Three  cases,  or  degrees,  of  the  unusual  may  be  observed: 
first,  what  I  shall  call  'mere  rarity';  second,  improbability;  third, 
impossibility. 

The  unusual  that  is  merely  rare,  and  the  unusual  that  is  so 


62  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

unusual,  to  speak  colloquially,  as  to  be  improbable,  are  easily 
euough  differentiated  in  concept.  Particular  examples  are 
often  apt  to  shade  both  ways.  The  visit  of  the  Czar  to  Gretchen, 
for  instance,  might,  with  a  slight  stretch  of  judgment,  be  taken 
as  an  example  of  either  case.  But  finding  a  land  of  giants  is 
so  much  more  improbable  than  the  Czar's  visit  to  Gretchen  that 
beside  it  the  visit  seems  only  a  case  of  rarity.  For  the  purpose 
of  the  argument,  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  Gretchen  incident 
is  an  example  of  mere  rarity.  A  captious  reader  may,  in  what 
follows,  substitute  for  Gretchen  the  winning  of  a  prize  in  the 
lottery,  or,  perhaps,  the  discovery  of  an  honest  alderman! 

Suppose,  then,  that  of  a  fine  Sunday  morning  Gretchen  is 
employing  her  motor  activities  in  the  ancient  and  honorable 
vocation  of  sweeping  and  dusting!  The  chances  are,  of  course, 
ten  to  one  that  her  surprise  upon  opening  the  door  and  hearing 
of  the  intended  visit  of  the  Russian  autocrat  w^ll  durate  to  a 
prolonged  paralysis  of  the  ordinary  functioning  of  politeness. 
Even  the  actual  appearance  of  the  Emperor  himself  will  hardly 
avail  to  break  that  spell  of  Teutonic  immobility.  But  Gretchen 
is  more  than  astonished:  she  is  amazed.  The  unusualness  of 
the  visit  has  been  recognized  mentally,  and  the  mental  surprise 
has  been  so  great  as  temporarily  to  arrest  the  comparing  and 
assimilating  functions  of  her  mind.  The  states  of  wonder  and 
curiosity  will  follow,  as  in  the  previous  case  of  physical  sur- 
prise, with  this  difference, — that,  whereas  in  the  former  case 
the  supervention  of  curiosity  and  wonder  involved  a  switching 
on  of  the  longer  loop  of  reaction,  here,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
activity  of  mental  surprise  has  already  established  that  circuit. 
The  indices  of  the  succeeding  states  are  still  the  same, — vol- 
untary attention,  in  place  of  involuntary  attention,  and  inter- 
rogation. As  long  as  there  is  a  hope  of  successfully  answering 
the  question,  the  state  of  curiosity  may  be  said  to  endure;  with 
bafflement,  to  coin  a  convenient  word,  wonder  succeeds.  It  is 
not  hard  to  picture  Gretchen 's  excited  review  of  possible  causes 
for  such  an  unheard-of  visit,  or  her  curious  listening  at  key- 
holes and  badgering  of  her  betters,  until,  forcibly  repressed, 
her  sources  of  information  shut  off  and  her  hypotheses  wildly 
vertiginous,  she  relapses  into  either  a  second  amazement  or  the 
gentler  state  of  helpless  wonder! 


THE  PSYCROLOGY  OF  WONDEB.  63 

The  inter-relations  of  the  characteristic  of  mere  rarity 
(which  by  a  familiar  trick  of  the  mind  attaches  itself  to  the 
objective  stimulus^"),  of  the  presence  or  absence  in  the  mind 
of  explanatory  hypotheses,  and  of  wonder,  are  somewhat  com- 
plex. But  the  multitude  of  particular  examples  may  be  reduced, 
I  think,  to  six  t}T)ical  cases. 

1.  Where  a  seeming  rarity  ceases  with  the  giving  of  the 
explanation. — In  this  case  wonder  ceases  immediately;  and  the 
subject,  in  discovering  that  the  rarity  was  only  a  cheat  of  seem- 
ing, feels  himself  the  victim  of  a  trick. — Suppose,  for  example, 
that  in  the  course  of  excavating  for  the  foundations  of  a  "sky- 
scraper" a  laborer  came  across,  many,  many  feet  beneath  the 
surface  of  the  ground,  a  spherical,  curiously  marked  object, 
which  he  at  first  took  for  a  human  skull,  but  which  on  closer 
examination  proved  to  be  merely  a  piece  of  rock.  The  wonder 
of  the  first  moment  would  quickly  vanish  in  something  like 
amusement  or  disgust  at  the  curio.  On  the  other  hand,  any 
wonder  at  the  curious  similarity  of  the  rock  to  a  human  head 
would  resolve  itself  into  Case  4,  mentioned  below. 

2.  Where  an  actual  rarity  still  remains  after  the  explana- 
tion has  been  given. — In  this  case  wonder  is  retained,  but  with 
a  gradually  decreasing  vividness. — Suppose,  again,  that  the 
object  found  by  the  laborer  really  was  a  human  skull,  but  that 
later-^  it  was  explained,  upon  investigation,  that  the  skull  was 
the  fossilized  remainder  of  a  prehistoric  man  of  the  Bronze 
Age.  Evidently  the  explanation  leaves  the  object  still  a  rarity, 
and  the  wonder  experienced  at  the  discovery  of  the  rarity 
durates  after  the  explanation.  This  duration  of  wonder,  how- 
ever, does  not  invalidate  our  original  assumption  of  the  relation 
between  wonder  and  ignorance;  for,  true  to  the  nature  of  that 
assumption,  the  wonder  in  this  case  is  subject  to  a  gradually 
decreasing  vividness.  That  skull,  placed  on  the  laborer's  mantel- 
piece, would  soon  cease  to  be  to  the  laborer  himself  the  object 
of  wonder  it  was  at  first.  To  understood  rarity  one  becomes 
accustomed.    Time  and  knowledge  both  weary  the  wonder. 


-0  Compare  above,  p.  55. 

2'^  Often  the  explanation  is  given  first,  the  rarity  itself  occurring  later. 
Thus,  one  may  have  stuilied  all  there  is  to  be  known  about  volcanoes;  yet 
his  first  sight  of  an  actual  eruption  will  cause  him  something  more  than 
surprise  and  other  than  curiosity. 


64  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

3.  Where  the  rarity  is  lost,  altJiough  no  explanation  is  ascer- 
tained.— Here  the  rarity  is  lost  by  the  multiplication  of  similar 
objects.  Wonder  dies  a  speedy  death  under  this  circumstance. — 
If  such  skulls  were  found  daily  and  in  all  parts  of  the  city, 
or  region,  even  though  there  were  no  sure  explanation,  they 
would  soon  cease  to  be  regarded  as  wonderful. 

4.  Where  the  rarity  remains,  and  no  explanation  is  given. — 
In  this  case  there  is  no  multiplication  of  the  objects  of  rarity; 
and  the  sense  of  wonder  keeps  only  a  precarious  life  because 
it  is  subject  to  the  corroding  effect  of  time. — For  instance,  one 
such  skull  might  have  been  found  and  ignorantly  guarded  by 
the  laborer  against  all  publicity  and  chance  of  explanation. 
The  wonder,  then,  would  first  rise,  and  later  wane,  describing 
a  curve,  as  it  were.  At  length  a  period  would  be  reached  when 
the  wonder,  while  yet  present  at  more  and  more  infrequent 
intervals  of  special  reflection,  would  be  but  pale  or  altogether 
absent  for  the  greater  part  of  the  time. 

5.  Where  rarity  is  kept,  but  one  or  more  hypotheses,  indefi- 
nitely felt  or  definitely  presented,  are  disregarded,  left  unex- 
plored,— the  mind  refusing  to  concentrate  upon  them  because 
it  prefers  the  idleness  of  wonder  to  the  exertion  of  curiosity. 
Often — perhaps  because  of  the  natural  inertia  of  the  mind,  or 
it  may  be  because  of  what  Ribot  so  vaguely  calls  the  innate  love 
of  the  marvellous — often  the  mind  deliberately  prefers  the  ab- 
sence of  explanation.  To  this  case  we  sliall  return  when  speak- 
ing of  the  pathology  of  wonder.^^  For  the  present  we  need 
only  suppose  that  the  laborer  was  an  imaginative,  credulous  fel- 
low, much  given  to  mysteries  and  miracles — perhaps  a  religious 
fanatic — who  deliberately  disregarded  the  explanation  of  his 
find  as  a  fossil  remain,  and  held  it  instead  to  be  a  saintly  relic 
revealed  to  him  for  his  particular  and  secret  advantage.  In  a 
credulous  community  such  an  object  might  easily  find  its  way 
into  the  sacred  relics  of  the  church.^®     Here,  also,  belong  the 


2«  The  pathology  of  wonder  will  bn  (liscuss('(l  in  another  paper. 

20  Compare  Johnson's  excoriation  of  the  ignorant  and  lazy  intellect 
which  prefers  the  ease  of  wonder  to  the  labor  of  reason :  ' '  What  they 
cannot  immediately  conceive,  they  consider  as  too  high  to  be  reached,  or 
too  extensive  to  be  comprehended;  they  therefore  content  themselves  with 
the  gaze  of  folly,  forbear  to  attempt  what  they  have  no  hope  of  performing, 
and  resign  the  pleasure  of  rational  contc^mplation  to  more  pertinacious  study 
or  more  active  faculties." — The  Eamblcr,  July  9,  l?/)!. 


TEE  PSYCnOLOGY  OF  WONDER.  65 

"wonder,  and  no  end  of  wondering"  that  the  ignorant,  super- 
stitious mind  experiences  when  it  attributes  some  rarity  in 
experience  "to  ghost,  to  witch,  to  fairy,  or  to  fiend."  Expe- 
riences of  the  sort  are,  of  course,  multiplied  and  magnified  in 
the  telling;  and  so  they  soon  progress  into  absolute  impossibili- 
ties, and  travel  out  of  the  realm  of  experiential  rarity  and  won- 
der into  that  of  'literary'  marvel.  Dr.  Beattie,  speaking  of 
second  sight  among  the  Highlanders,  quotes  the  following  poem, 
with  the  remark  that  "what  in  history  or  philosophy  would 
make  but  an  awkward  figure,  may  sometimes  have  a  charming 
effect  in  poetry." 

*  *  E  'er  since  of  old  the  haughty  Thanes  of  Ross 

(So  to  the  simple  swain  tradition  tells) 

Were  wont,  with  clans  and  ready  vassals  throng 'd. 

To  wake  the  bounding  stag,  or  guilty  wolf; 

There  oft  is  heard  at  midnight,  or  at  noon. 

Beginning   faint,  but   rising  still  more  loud 

And  nearer,  voice  of  hunters  and  of  hounds. 

And  horns,  hoarse-winded,   blowing   far  and   keen, 

Forthwith   the  hubbub   multiplies;    the   gale 

Labours  with   wilder  shrieks,  and   rifer   din 

Of  hot  pursuit;   the  broken  cry  of  deer, 

Mangled  by  throttling  dogs;  the  shouts  of  men, 

And  hoofs  thick-beating  on  the  hollow  hill. 

Sudden,  the  grazing  heifer  in  the  vale 

Starts  at  the  tumult,  and  the  herdsman's  ears 

Tingle  with  inward  dread.     Aghast  he  eyes 

The  mountain's  height,  and  all  the  ridges  round; 

Yet  not  one  trace  of  living  wight,  discerns: 

Nor  knows,  o'eraw'd  and  trembling  as  he  stands, 

To  what,  or  whom,  he  owes  his  idle  fear. 

To  ghost,  to  witch,  to  fairy,  or  to  fiend; 

But  wonders ;  and  no  end  of  wondering  finds. '  'so 

6.  Lastly,  and  perhaps  to  a  philosophic  mind  most  signifi- 
cant, as  it  is  most  general,  is  the  case  where  both  rarity  aud 
lack  of  explanation  are  created  for  any  object  in  the  vniverse 
by  isolating  it  in  thought  from  its  environment. — It  requires 
but  the  focusing  of  the  attention  exclusively  upon  any  one  thing, 
however  humble  or  mighty,  from  a  blade  of  spear-grass  to  Sirius 


^'^  Albania,  a  poem.     London  1737,  folio.     Beattie,  J.,  Essays  on  Poetry 
and  Music,  Edinb.  1778,  p.  185. 


66  STUDIES  IN  TUE  MAEVELLOUS. 

himself,  in  order  to  render  that  object  a  supernal  and  unac- 
countable wonder.  Divorce  the  commonest  detail  from  its  shel- 
tering cluster  of  accustomed  relations,  and  the  sense  of  being 
baffled  in  the  face  of  questions  of  nature  and  origin  is  so  over- 
whelming that,  though  a  thousand  times  and  more  the  thing 
may  have  been  tacitly  accepted  and  used  as  a  perfectly  under- 
stood object,  yet  the  entire  mystery  of  life  itself  is  felt  to  be 
gathered  into  its  particular  circle. 

On  Earth,  in  Air,  amidst  the  Seas  and  Skies, 

Mountainous  Heaps  of  Wonders  rise; 

Whose  tow 'ring  Strength  will  ne'er  submit 
To  Reason's  Batt'ries,   or  the  Mines  of  Wit.^i 

The  significance  of  the  case  is  w^ell  summed  up  by  Lazarus: 
*'In  der  nothwendigen  Isolirung  der  Betrachtung  liegt  die 
psychologische  Ursache  fiir  die  Anschauung  des  Wunders  als 
solehen,  daher  aber  kann  jede  einzelne  Naturerscheinung  wie 
ein  "Wunder  auf  den  Besehauer  wirken,  wenn  er  die  Betrach- 
tung absichtlich  isolirt.  .  .  .  Sobald  wir  aber  dasselbe  Ding 
in  seinem  realen  Zusammenhang  mit  anderen  sehen,  verschwin- 
det  das  Gefiihl  des  Wunderbaren.  Die  wissenschaftliche  Be- 
trachtung kennt  kein  Wunder,  weil  sie  die  Erscheinungen  nie- 
mals  isolirt,  stets  nach  den  Ursachen  sucht  und  auch  die  nicht 
sogleich  gefundenen  stets  mit  Gewissheit  in  anderen  endlichen 
Erscheinungen  voraussetzt.  "^-  The  last  statement  is,  of  course, 
exact  only  in  an  ideal  fashion.  Even  scientific  curiosity,  as  we 
have  observed,  is  hardly  ever  so  well  trained  as  entirely  to  give 
over  wondering  at  the  rare  in  its  fields  of  experience. 

It  is  necessary  to  pause  a  moment  for  the  purpose  of  pro- 
viding against  any  misconception  of  the  relations  between  won- 
der and  curiosity  that  might  arise  from  a  treatment  so  schematic 
as  the  one  hitherto  adopted.  For  the  purposes  of  clear  exposi- 
tion the  state  of  wonder  has  been  represented  as  though  it  were 
alwaj's  subsequent  to  states  of  curiosity.  Now,  while  the  apogee 
of  wonder  is  indeed  reached  after  the  failure  of  curiosity  to 
find  a  solution,  the  lesser  degrees  of  wonder  do  not  always  and 
only  occur  subsequent  to  the  attempts  of  curiosity.    On  the  con- 


31  Matthew  Prior,  An  Ode,  1688. 

32  M.  Lazarus,  Das  Leben  der  Seelc,  Berlin  1883,  I,  299. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  irONDEE.  67 

trary,  wonder  may  often  precede  curiosity.  A  momentary  obliv- 
ion of  hypotheses  may  allow  wonder  the  position  of  priority. 
Eeason  may  be  caught  napping,  and  so  the  field  momentarily 
may  be  left  to  wonder.  This  case  is  somewhat  subject  to  con- 
fusion with  the  fifth  of  the  six  typical  cases  above — the  case 
where  inertia  of  mind  prefers  the  quiescent  condition  of  wonder 
to  the  energetic  search  for  reasons.  Still  more  confusing  is  its 
relation  to  astonishment;  and  it  is  probable  that  the  majority 
of  cases  where  wonder  is  thought  to  precede  curiosity  are  really 
cases  of  that  temporary  paralj^sis  of  mental  function  we  have 
called  amazement. 

Again,  wonder  and  curiosity  exist  side  by  side.  If  wonder, 
in  its  aspect  of  baffled  reason,  may  be  partially  defined  as  the 
feeling-tone  of  the  failure  to  adapt  rationally  a  new  relation  to 
the  fund  of  old  relations  held  in  memory,  it  logically  follows 
that  every  attempt  at  adaptation,  every  passing  in  trial  of  suc- 
cessive hypotheses,  will  be  attended  with  the  sense  of  partial 
failure,  and,  therefore,  with  the  feeling  of  incipient  wonder. 
Moreover,  this  momentary  failure  of  each  successive  hypothesis 
adumbrates  a  final  failure  of  all  hypotheses, — the  possibility  of 
an  ultimate,  complete  bafflement.  This  is  indeed  the  rule  of 
experience.  So  closely  do  stages  of  lapsing  wonder  and  tenta- 
tive hypothesis  follow  one  upon  another,  that  the  ordinary  mind 
does  not  distinguish  between  them,  as  is  clearly  witnessed  by 
the  confusion  of  wonder  and  curiosity  in  the  common  phrase  "I 
wonder  what  this  is?";  or  "I  wonder  if  this  is  right,  or  that?" 
Such  phrases  are  constantly  used  while  curiosity  is  in  full 
swing;  and  to  say  '*I  wonder  what  this  is,"  is  equivalent  to 
saying  "I  am  curious  to  know  what  this  is."  The  phrase  un- 
consciously attests  the  fact  that  wonder  and  curiosity  are  after 
all  inextricably  intermingled, — if  they  are  not  two  aspects,  the 
one  emotional  and  the  other  intellectual,  of  the  same  process. 
Wonder  is  primarily  an  emotion  of  the  mind — the  sensory  ac- 
companiment, as  it  were,  of  the  mental  and  motor  activities  of 
curiosity.  It  reaches  its  acme  when  the  mental  attempt  at  adap- 
tation, having  failed,  exists  only  potentially  as  a  suspense  of 
the  faculties  engaged  in  the  adaptative  processes. 


CS  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

But  that  pause  of  the  faculties,  that  suspense  of  the  pro- 
cesses, that  moment  of  complete  wonder,  is  itself  recognized  by 
the  mind  as  one  of  its  characteristic  states,  and  remembered  as 
such.  Thus,  and  the  point  is  extremely  important,  wonder  be- 
comes a  concept.  The  emotion  receives  its  conceptual  baptism; 
and  henceforward  it  is  recognized  as  an  intellectual  category. 
From  this  double  nature  of  wonder — its  experience  as  an  emo- 
tion and  its  recognition  as  a  conceptual  state — have  come  the 
extreme  confusion  of  its  contradictory  usages  as  a  term,  and 
the  difficulty  of  its  analysis  and  psj^chological  description.-''^ 

The  concept  of  wonder,  when  once  established,  is  liable, 
especially  in  uneducated  minds,  to  frequent  and  immediate  as- 
sociation with  all  unusual  stimuli.  A  strange  creaking  of  doors 
at  night,  tappings  at  the  window-sill  or  at  the  bed-post,  the 
creepy  sensations  of  fear  itself  at  such  times,  immediately  call 
up  the  wonder  concept ;  and  associations  so  formed  issue  in  the 
various  forms  of  spiritual  superstition.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said 
that  in  such  superstition  the  association  of  unusual  experiences 
with  the  wonder  concept  has,  by  long  repetition,  become  im- 
mediate and  habitual,  if  not  instinctive.  Rational  curiosity  plays 
but  small  part  in  such  a  state  of  mind ;  indeed,  rational  curiosity 
is  throttled  by  superstition.  In  this  and  similar  ways  the  won- 
der concept  comes  to  be  employed  so  repeatedly  and  universally 
that  it  is  often  felt  to  have  an  existence  of  its  owm  in  the  scheme 
of  things — to  be  an  entity,  or  law  of  exceptions,  from  which 
proceed  all  that  is  unusual,  improbable,  or,  according  to  ordi- 
nary rule,  impossible.  And,  finally,  the  readiness  with  which 
the  concept  comes  to  be  applied  reacts  upon  its  stimulus,  so 
that  many  a  minor  circumstance,  which  otherwise  might  have 
escaped  notice,  comes  to  be  felt  as  extraordinary. 


33  This  double  nature  of  wonder  explains  the  peculiar  relations  of  won- 
der to  the  corroding  effect  of  time.  On  the  one  hand,  because  of  the 
extremely  transitory  nature  of  that  suspense  which  gives  the  emotional 
acme  of  wonder,  the  emotion  is  entirely  subject  to  the  deadening  effects 
of  time;  on  the  other  hand,  the  idea  of  wonder  remains,  is  dimmed  by 
time  far  more  gradually,  and  is  capable  of  resuscitation  or  reinvigoration 
at  any  moment.  Of  course,  the  reinvigoration  of  the  idea  is  usually  at- 
tended with  a  more  or  less  acute  resurrection  of  the  emotion;  but  in  this 
case  the  stimulus  is,  as  it  were,  second-hand  (being  the  memory  of  a 
state,  and  not  the  original  state  itself),  and  so  can  rarely  revive  the  emotion 
in  its  original  intensity. 


TEE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  TV  ON  DEE.  69 

In  turn,  to  create  the  further  confusion  of  gods  and  miracles, 
the  mind,  by  its  usual  mj-thological  trick  of  externalizing  its 
workings  in  nature,  has  dubbed  the  stimuli  of  the  wonder  state 
wonderful — has  personified  its  own  feelings  of  itself  in  external 
events  and  appearances,  and  then  has  explained  the  former  by 
the  latter  on  the  old  magical  fallacy  that  like  causes  like.  Such 
unconscious  reasoning  in  a  circle  is  still  a  part  of  our  present- 
day  mythology. 

But  superstition,  and  gods  and  miracles,  are  carrying  the 
argument  beyond  the  consideration  of  the  eases  of  mere  rarity 
into  the  higher  degrees  of  the  unusual.  It  is  possible  now  to 
turn  to  these  higher  degrees. 

The  unusual  that  is  improbable  demands  first  attention. 

It  is  to  be  noted,  at  once,  that  the  improbable  is  more  often 
told,  than  experienced ;  for  actual  experience  clouds  improba- 
bility with  the  tangibility  of  an  occurrence,  and  reduces  its 
character  to  one  of  mere  rarity.  Consequently,  the  improbable 
is  usually  encountered  in  the  tales  of  others,  or  in  the  imaginative 
retrospection  of  the  teller  himself.  In  literature,  therefore,  which 
in  some  of  its  forms  is  a  worked-over  tale,  the  improbable  may  be 
expected  to  thrive  as  in  its  native  tropics.  There,  too,  its  con- 
ceptual character,  its  character  of  an  inference  from  the  rule  of 
experience,  will  find  its  expression  in  the  crafty  marshalling  of 
experiences  not  by  the  laws  of  natural  chance,  but  by  the  judg- 
ment of  the  artist. 

In  the  second  place,  it  must  be  at  once  conceded  that  the 
inferential  character  of  the  concept  of  improbability  may  con- 
tain on  the  bare  face  of  it  a  skepticism  bj'^  no  means  favorable 
to  wonder.  Thus,  for  example,  the  very  pronouncing  as  im- 
probable the  tale  of  the  Czar's  visit  to  Gretchen  may  intimate 
a  disbelief  which  would  sooner  ridicule  the  tale  than  see  its 
wonder.  Improbability,  as  a  judgment  advanced  with  definite 
assurance,  certainly  produces  laughter  rather  than  wonder. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  nature  of  improbability  is  by 
no  means  constant.  Its  concept  is  subject  always  to  the  change 
incident  to  its  relative  character.  Tlie  individual  who  realizes 
this  fact  more  or  less  clearly,  or  who  temperamentally  is  in- 
clined to  wavering  convictions,  not  seldom  advances  the  ridi- 


70  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAHVELLOVS. 

cule  of  improbability  with  very  feeble  assurance.  Constantly 
feeling  that  the  improbable  is  not  impossible,  but  that  it  may 
be  only  a  higher  and  rarer  degree  of  the  unusual,  he  is  by  no 
means  ready  to  indulge  in  hasty  ridicule.  To  him  the  improb- 
ability increases  the  wonder.  His  mind,  very  likely,  has  already 
developed  a  readiness  to  apply  the  wonder  concept.  Therefore, 
the  hesitancy  of  mental  adaptation,  which  the  improbable 
arouses  in  him,  is  brought  into  immediate  association  with  won- 
der. And  it  is  the  very  contradictory  nature  of  this  vacillating, 
undetermined  state  of  mind,  where  judgment  varies  from  a 
half-hearted  assertion  of  skepticism  to  the  undecided  feeling  of 
wonder,  and  back  again,  that  serves  best  of  all  to  keep  the  state 
of  wonder  alive  and  vivid.  But  of  that  further,  when  the  re- 
lations of  belief  and  wonder  are  considered  by  themselves. 

Here  it  must  be  added  that  when  the  improbable  is  taken 
in  this  sense,  as  a  higher  and  rarer  degree  of  the  unusual,  its 
relation  to  curiosity  brings  out  a  new  aspect  which  should  be 
strongly  emphasized.  In  all  cases  so  far  considered,  both  those 
of  suddenness  and  rarity,  there  has  always  been  the  possibility 
of  a  state  of  curiosity  intervening  between  the  stimulus  and 
the  wonder  state;  and  the  curiosity  has  depended,  as  it  always 
does,  upon  the  attempt  at  mental  adaptation.  With  the  baffle- 
ment of  that  attempt,  wonder  has  succeeded.  But  in  the  case 
of  the  distinctly  improbable  (a  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr,  Hyde  story, 
for  instance;  or,  better  still,  the  story  of  a  trip  to  the  moon 
and  back:  supposing,  in  both  cases,  no  explanation  is  offered 
of  the  circumstances)  the  immediate  recognition  of  the  wild 
divergence  from  the  probable  tends  to  abbreviate,  or  even,  in 
some  cases,  entirely  abrogate,  the  state  of  curiosity  in  favor  of 
one  of  wonder  or  marvel.  Within  the  bounds  of  belief  the 
very  improbability  clouds  the  effort  of  curiosity  to  find  a  suffi- 
cient explanation,  and  gives  in  advance  a  sense  of  the  abortive- 
ness  in  which  the  effort  must  end.  Afterwards,  to  be  sure,  the 
habit  of  curiosity,  the  forlorn  hope  of  gaining  some  clue  to  the 
more  than  remarkable  condition,  may  occasion  some  effort,  more 
or  less  abortive,  toward  finding  a  solution.  But  the  stronger 
the  improbability,  the  less  hope  there  is  in  such  effort.  At  any 
rate,  the  effort  is  in  the  great  majority  of  cases  secondary  to 
the  wonder  state. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WONDER.  71 

The  relation  of  improbability  to  explanatory  hypotheses,  and 
to  the  feeling  of  the  marvellous,  may  be  summarized  in  five 
cases  corresponding  to  the  first  five  of  the  six  cases  in  which 
the  relations  of  rarity  to  explanation  and  wonder  have  already 
been  tabulated.^*  For  the  sake  of  clearness  the  phraseology  of 
the  former  passage  is  copied  here  verbatim. 

1.  "Where  a  seeming  improbability  ceases  with  the  giving  of 
the  explanation. — In  this  case  marvelling  ceases  immediately; 
the  subject,  in  discovering  that  the  improbability  was  only  a 
cheat  of  seeming,  feels  himself  the  victim  of  a  trick.  Mrs.  Rad- 
cliffe's  marvels  are  of  this  sort.  In  The  Mysteries  of  Udolpho, 
for  instance,  the  Something  behind  the  veil  in  Montoni's  castle, 
the  weird  singing  in  the  woods  of  St.  Clair,  and  Ludovico's  dis- 
appearance, are  but  three  of  numberless  cases  where  a  marvel 
lasts  through  many  chapters  only  to  be  explained  tamely  as  a 
most  matter-of-fact  affair  when  one's  suspense  has  reached  the 
breaking  point.  It  is  impossible  to  keep  up  a  show  of  marvel 
when  the  explanation  reveals  the  rarity  as  an  imposition. 

2.  Where  an  actual  improbability  still  remains  after  the 
explanation  has  been  given. — In  this  case  marvelling  persists, 
but,  in  general,  with  a  gradually  decreasing  vividness.  In  Haw- 
thorne's Rappacini's  Daughter,  the  wonderful  Beatrice  is  at 
last  understood  as  one  who  "had  been  nourished  with  poisons 
from  her  birth  upward,  until  her  whole  nature  was  so  imbued 
with  them  that  she  herself  had  become  the  deadliest  poison  in 
existence.  Poison  was  her  element  of  life.  With  that  rich  per- 
fume of  her  breath  she  blasted  the  very  air.  Her  love  would  have 
been  poison." — "Is  this  not  a  marvellous  tale?"  asks  Baglioni. — 
Yes,  a  marvel  to  explain  a  marvel;  or,  as  it  may  be  stated,  an 
improbability  still  an  improbability  after  the  explanation !  It 
need  hardly  be  pointed  out  that  the  objection  that  this  explana- 
tion does  not  scientifically  and  exactly  explain  anything,  is 
quite  beside  the  mark.  Under  most  circumstances,  other  things 
being  equal,  the  very  lapse  of  time  will  produce  a  gradual 
weakening  of  the  feeling  of  the  marvellous  in  this  case. 

3.  Where  the  sense  of  improbability  is  lost,  although  no  ex- 
planation is  ascertained. — Here  the  sense  of  improbability  is  lost. 


3*  See  above,  pp.  63  ff. 


72  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABVELLOUS. 

because,  by  the  multiplication  of  similar  improbabilities,  we  lose 
the  very  sense  of  their  improbability.  IMarvelling  dies  a  speedy 
death  under  this  circumstance.  The  constant  repetition  of  im- 
probable prowess  upon  the  part  of  the  heroes  of  fairy-stories, 
the  endless  rehearsal  of  the  improbable  doughtiness  of  the 
knights  in  Le  Morte  d' Arthur  (provided,  always,  one  is  read- 
ing credulously  like  a  child,  and  providing,  also,  one's  reading 
is  continuous  enough  to  realize  the  repetition)  have  undeniably 
a  dulling  effect  upon  our  capacity  for  marvelling.  The  effect 
is  analogous  to  that  loss  of  the  sense  of  the  marvellous  that 
would  ensue  in  real  life  could  we  conceive  of  Beatrice  Rappa- 
cinis  becoming  as  common  as  Mary  Smiths.  Even  though  there 
were  no  more  explanation  than  accompany  the  Mary  Smiths, 
these  Beatrice  Rappacinis  could  not  be  felt  as  marvellous. 
Repetition  establishes  probability,  fact ;  it  destroys  improbability. 
4.  Where  the  sense  of  improbability  is  kept,  and  no  explana- 
tion is  presented. — In  this  case  there  is  no  multiplication  of  the 
objects  of  improbability^ ;  and  the  feeling  of  the  marvellous  keeps 
only  a  precarious  life  (unless  complicated  by  other  emotions,  such 
as  fear^^),  because  it  is  subject  to  the  corroding  effect  of  time. 
To  refer  to  Hawthorne's  tale  again,  one  might  be  forced  so 
constantly  to  live  with,  or  see,  the  beautiful  but  baleful  Beatrice, 
that,  although  one  never  learned  her  secret,  the  marvel  of  her, 
while  yet  recognized  at  intervals  of  special  reflection,  would  be 
hardly  felt,  or  altogether  absent,  for  the  greater  part  of  the  time. 
In  literature,  the  case  is  represented  by  the  curve  of  marvelling 
— first  rising,  and  then,  with  time,  falling — which  credulity 
describes  in  repeated  readings  of  Beo^vulf's  fight  with  Grendel, 
or  of  the  slaying  of  Goliath  by  David,  or  of  the  destruction  of 
the  palace  by  Samson.  After  imagination  has  played  its  part 
and  intensified  the  marvel,  after  the  marvel  has  become  a  well- 
known  story,  often  repeated,  thoroughly  familiar, — its  pristine 
power  is  dimmed,  not  to  be  revived  except  under  peculiar  and 
infrequent  circumstances.  But  the  marvel  that  springs  from 
the  improbable  has  a  greater  initial  force  and  a  slower  decline 
than  the  wonder  that  springs  from  mere  rarity. 


35  See  below,  p.  90. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WONDEB.  73 

5.  Where  improbability  is  kept,  but  one  or  more  indefinite 
hypotheses,  vaguely  felt,  are  disregarded,  left  unexplored, — the 
mind  refusing  to  concentrate  upon  them  because  it  prefers  the 
idleness  of  marvelling  to  the  exertion  of  curiosity. — Often — 
perhaps  because  of  the  natural  inertia  of  the  mind,  or,  it  may  be, 
because  of  what  Ribot  so  vaguely  calls  the  innate  love  of  the 
marvellous — often  the  mind  deliberately  prefers  the  absence  of 
explanation.  For  the  present,  an  example  may  be  drawn  from 
Tieck's  tale  of  The  Goblet  as  translated  in  Carlyle's  German 
liomance.^^  When  Old  Albert  places  the  beautiful  gold  cup 
between  himself  and  Ferdinand,  and  the  wonderful  form  begins 
to  rise  from  it,  mist-like,  gradually  clearing  in  outline,  many 
a  reader  would  fain  forget  the  indicated  explanations  of  auto- 
hypnosis  and  suggestion  in  order  to  revel  in  the  rarity  of  the 
show.  Or  Aylmer's  tricks  of  legerdemain,  in  Hawthorne's  tale. 
The  Birthmark,  though  confessedly  the  work  of  a  cunning  sci- 
entist familiar  with  the  mirror-tricks  of  illusion,  are  yet,  by 
many  a  mind,  too  strongly  felt  as  wonderful  to  allow  any  hunt- 
ing up  of  the  half-forgotten  chapters  of  a  text-book  on  physics. 

The  contrary-to-fact  degree,  or  stage,  of  the  unusual,  which 
begins  to  make  its  appearance  with  the  improbable,  rises  to  its 
height  in  the  next  aspect  of  our  subject, — the  impossible.  With 
the  impossible,  as  with  the  improbable,  belief  is  a  necessary 
prerequisite  to  the  wonder  state.  But  it  will  be  better  to  post- 
pone the  discussion  of  belief  to  a  separate  category,  and  to 
assume  for  the  present  that  the  impossible  may  and  does  even- 
tuate in  wonder  under  the  tutelage  of  whatever  may  be  the 
proper  degree  or  kind  of  belief. 

When  the  divergence  from  the  rule  of  experience  is  carried 
into  the  realm  ordinarily  designated  as  the  impossible,  there  is 
a  perfect  absence  of  the  rational  hypotheses  of  curiosity  by  the 
very  nature  of  the  case.  Witches,  hobgoblins,  land  of  faery, 
Joshua's  ruling  of  the  sun,  Circe's  magical  pranks,  the  descent 
of  Orpheus  to  Hades, — these,  and  all  their  kind,  suggest  rational 
hypotlieses  only  to  comparative  mythologists.  Wonder  and 
spirits   are   here   supreme.      This   is   wonder's   own   stronghold: 


Carlyle,  German  Romance,  ed.  II.  D.  Traill,  N.  Y.   1901,  I,  369. 


74  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEVELLOUS. 

the  outposts  are  the  improbable;  the  citadel  is  the  impossible. 
From  outpost  to  citadel  the  story  of  wonder  extends  as  in  a 
climax,  until  upon  the  citadel  itself  we  behold,  in  an  apotheosis 
of  wonder,  the  dead  risen  to  life  and  time  turned  backward  in 
its  course.  The  world  is  filled  with  magicians  and  their  famil- 
iars. Scop  and  trouhadour  sing  of  enchantment.  We  more 
than  wonder.     We  marvel. 

Here,  then,  at  last,  is  the  marvellous.  It  stands  at  the  apex 
of  a  general  tendency  away  from  the  ordinary,  which,  after  taking 
its  rise  in  small  matters  of  sudden  stimuli,  and  passing  on 
through  a  multiplicity  of  grades  of  the  merely  rare,  finally  cul- 
minates in  the  higher  reaches  of  the  improbable  and  impossible. 
The  marvellous  is  a  step  out  of  reality.  Because  of  that  very 
fact,  the  marvellous  naturally  belongs  rather  to  the  tale  of 
imagination  than  to  the  reality  of  physical  adventure.  What 
but  telling  can  involve  the  marvellous, — what  but  that  telling 
which  sooner  or  later  finds  its  way  into  the  form  of  literature? 
Illusions  and  hallucinations,  or,  from  a  different  point  of  view, 
miracles  and  visions,  are  the  only  exceptions  to  this  rule  of  the 
unexperienced;  and  they,  because  of  the  supreme  individual 
necessity'  of  telling  them  to  one's  fellows,  also  must  soon  find 
themselves  brought  into  literary  form,  or  some  precursory  con- 
dition of  such  form.  It  is  strange  enough,  and  a  fact  that  can- 
not be  insisted  upon  too  strongly,  that  the  very  passing  out  of 
actual  fact,  the  very  escape  from  hypothesis,  is  what  throws  the 
marvellous  into  the  arms  of  literature.  Here  is  indeed  to  the 
front  the  lying  genius  of  words, — that  wondrous  capability  that, 
judged  from  a  moral  point  of  view,  afforded  Greek  philosophy, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  the  all  too  pious  beginning  of  a  literary 
criticism  of  the  marvellous.^^ 


37  Present  usage  of  the  term  marvellous  illustrates  this  character  of 
impossibility.  Nowadays,  the  marvel  j)ar  excellence  is  the  tale  of  spirit- 
ualisin,  the  alleged  feat  of  clairvoyance,  the  miracle  of  the  Church.  These 
things,  directly  contrary  to  usual  experience,  transcending  the  possible  as 
we  ordinarily  conceive  the  possible,  are  the  things  that  we  now  commonly 
term  marvels.  True,  we  say  such  and  such  a  piece  of  acting  is  "marvel- 
lously well  done";  but  the  very  attempt,  of  which  we  are  conscious,  to 
reach  after  the  most  superlative  word  in  our  effort  at  that  polite  compli- 
ment, is  x)roof  in  itself  of  the  exaggeration  of  circumstance  to  which  the 
word  strictly  belongs.  "Wonderfully  well  done,"  would  be  the  truer 
phrase,  signifying  "rarely  well  done";  marvellous  should  be  reserved  for 
those  cases  that  smack  decidedly  of  the  improbable  and  impossible. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WON  DEE.  75 

In  the  rising  plane  of  wonder  states  established  by  the  gradual 
ascent  from  suddenness  and  mere  rarity  to  the  improbable  and 
impossible,  it  would  be  very  convenient  if  we  could  draw  a  divid- 
ing line  across  the  middle  and  call  all  states  and  stimuli  belong- 
ing to  the  lower  half — the  sudden  and  unusual  classes — wonder- 
ful; and  all  states  and  stimuli  belonging  to  the  higher  half — the 
improbable  and  impossible — marvellous.  This  limitation  of  terms 
is,  in  fact,  here  proposed;  and  henceforth,  throughout  this  book, 
the  terms  will  be  used,  technically,  under  this  limitation.  That 
for  such  a  technical  distinction  there  is  some  warrant  in  the 
general  use  of  the  words,  is  at  once  obvious  from  the  previous 
discussion  of  usage.^®  Marvellous  is  indeed  a  heavier  term  than 
wonderful,  and  contains  in  its  fringe  of  sublimer  and  more  awful 
association  the  warrant  for  such  a  limitation. 

But  to  return  to  our  analysis.  The  careful  reader  may  have 
discovered  an  apparent  flaw  in  the  reasoning  of  the  last  para- 
graph but  one.  INIiracles  and  visions  were  there  cited  as  excep- 
tions to  the  rule  that  marvels  cannot  be  experienced,  and  yet, 
in  the  .same  breath,  they  were  put  forward  as  examples  of  the 
impossible.  The  marvellous  seems  with  a  vengeance  to  have 
carried  us  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  logical.  What  can  solve 
this  difficulty,  and  also,  at  the  same  time,  remove  another  ob- 
jection, which  must  have  been  felt  by  every  mind,  viz,  that  the 
very  impossibility  cited  destroys  by  its  irrationality  the  sense 
of  the  marvellous  and  substitutes  that  of  the  ridiculous?  The 
answer  is  not  far  to  seek.  Surprise,  curiosity, — these  have  led  us 
to  wonder.  Our  next  clue  contains  the  reply  to  the  present  diffi- 
culty. Belief !  There  is  the  factor  in  the  wonder-complex  which 
steps  into  the  logical  breach,  renders  the  impossible  possible  to 
experience,  and  drives  the  ridiculous  from  the  citadel  of  marvel. 
Belief  makes  all  things  possible  without  destroying  the  magic 
land  of  the  impossible.  It  does  this  by  its  own  irrationality.  By 
accepting  as  real  what  reason  warns  it  is  impossible,  belief  is 


■■"*  See  above,  pp.  8-13.  One  can  hardly  use  the  long  phrase  'the  emotion 
of  marvelling'  each  time  it  is  necessary  to  speak  of  that  emotion.  For  this 
reason,  it  has  been  necessary  to  e.xteml  the  meaning  of  the  word  'marvel' 
to  designate  the  'emotion  of  marvelling';  just  as  'wonder'  designates  the 
'emotion  of  wondering.'  'Marvel,'  with  this  new  meaning,  will  often  be 
found  in  the  following  pages. 


76  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

enabled  to  keep  the  sense  of  the  impossible  while  denying  it. 
As  Principal  Jevons  remarks,  "the  tenacity  with  which  a  belief 
is  held  does  not  vary  with  the  reasonableness  of  the  belief  or 
the  amount  of  evidence  for  it ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  those  people 
are  usually  most  confident  in  their  opinions  who  have  the  least 
reason  to  be  so.  "^^  Thus,  while  to  unbelief  visions  are  hallu- 
cinations and  miracles  are  illusions,  they  are  to  belief  particular 
realities  that  do  not  destroy  the  general  concept  of  impossibility. 
And  as  such  they,  and  their  like,  are  marvellous, — not  ridiculous. 
The  impossible,  says  belief,  is  possible  in  rare  cases,  perhaps 
in  very  rare  cases.  In  one  word,  it  is  through  belief  that  im- 
possibility comes  to  be  regarded  as  the  supreme  case  of  the  un- 
usual, or  of  rarity. 

Thus  belief  makes  marvel,*" — that  is,  clears  the  way  for  the 
development  of  marvel.  But  marvel  also  makes  belief.  The 
vividness  with  which  a  miraculous  event  first  stirs  the  emotion 
of  wonder,  before  the  mind  has  busied  itself  logically  with  sug- 
gestions of  irrationality  and  doubt,  has  much  to  do  with  the 
perpetuation  of  the  belief  in  the  miracle.  Other  things  being 
equal — that  is,  supposing  in  a  given  individual  the  rational 
index  remains  constant  under  a  series  of  suggestions  of  the 
miraculous — the  greater  the  initial  emotion  of  wonder,  the  more 
durable  will  be  the  belief  in  the  miracle.  This  follows  from  the 
general  proposition  that  vividness  in  any  emotion  tends  to  in- 
duce a  belief  in  the  reality  of  the  object  or  supposed  cause  of 
the  emotion.  Familiar  examples  of  this  general  truth  are  found 
in  the  emotional  make-believe  of  children,  where  the  very  vivid- 
ness of  the  emotions  aroused  tends  always  to  give  the  zest  of 
reality  to  the  childish  fiction ;  and  in  the  illusion  of  the  stage 
or  the  novel,  where,  again,  the  vivid  emotional  participation 
of  the  spectator  or  participant  temporarily  cheats  him  into  a 
belief  in  the  reality  of  the  dramatic  fiction.  Who  has  not  read 
some  weird  and  awful  book*^  far  into  the  wee  hours  of  the  night 
and  had  his  fear  of  vampires  and  were-wolves  so  vividly  aroused 


30  F.  B.  Jevons,  Introd.  to  Eistory  of  Bdigion,  London  1902,  p.  20. 
<o  Cf.  above,  note  38. 

•♦1  Like  Bram  Stoker's  The  Vampire,  for  instance,  or  Robert  Chambers' 
The  King  in  Yellow. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WONDEE.  77 

that  he  has  found  himself  half-believing,  for  a  moment,  those 
horrible  fictions,  and  starting  nervously  at  ghostly  tappings  of 
the  breeze  on  the  window  lest  they  might  be  the  mysteriously 
fascinating  call  of  the  vampire?  What  so  subtly  persuades  us  to 
the  illusion  of  reality'  as  this  intense  play  of  emotions?  Pain 
inveigles  us  into  belief  in  the  very  desperate  reality  of  the  suf- 
ferings of  Lear  and  Othello;  joy  persuades  us  unawares  into 
belief  in  the  rollicking  reality  of  Falstaff. 

The  very  simulation  of  emotions  by  those  who  are  dramat- 
ically inclined  leads  such  actors  into  a  confusion  of  fact  and  make- 
believe,  until  they  can  with  difficulty  tell  when  they  are  acting 
and  when  not.  The  emotions  are  always  attached  to  objects: 
when  the  emotions  are  intensely  active  the  mind  naturally  as- 
sumes the  objects,  and  assiunes  them  as  real  because  the  emo- 
tions are  real.    This  is  the  "sympathetic  magic"  of  the  emotions. 

Wonder,  therefore,  or  marvelling,  to  speak  more  strictly,  as 
one  of  the  emotions,  will,  when  vividly  stirred,  produce  this 
tendency  to  belief.  Let  the  individual  once  experience  the 
glamor  of  a  great  marvel;  let  him  once  feel  the  ecstasy  of  the 
Herculean  demi-god  whose  powers  transcend  ordinary  physical 
limitations;  let  him  once  take  part  in  the  voyage  to  the  Hes- 
perides,  in  the  cleansing  of  the  Augean  Stables,  in  the  magic  of 
Jack  the  Giant  Killer,  in  the  quest  of  the  Graal,  in  the  mystery 
of  Parzival, — and  his  belief  in  the  reality  of  these  powers  and 
adventures  is  so  in  love  with  itself  that,  against  his  own  mind's 
later  and  calmer  suggestion  of  irrationality,  he  will  cry  out,  like 
Tertullian,  '^ possible  quia  impossible  est."  Have  not  the  marvels 
of  the  church  always  been  a  chief  ally  in  gaining  the  belief 
of  a  certain  class?  The  air  of  awe  and  sublime  wonder  in  a 
stately  cathedral  overtakes  even  the  mind  of  the  skeptic,  and  he 
finds  himself,  under  that  glamor,  moving  faintly  back  to  the 
belief  of  his  childhood.  Lost  in  marvelling  at  the  legerdemain 
of  the  Hindu  fakir,  we  forget  for  a  moment  that  what  we  see  is 
not  real."*-  Who  does  not  marvel  at  Wagner's  Parzival  until 
his  imagination  is  gripped  with  a  great  reality?  even  though  it 


42  Of  course  the  "seeing"  is  a  stronger  ally  of  belief  than  the  mar- 
velliug;  biit  the  marvelling  also  persuades  us.  What  we  feel  seems  real, 
as  well  as  what  we  see;  and  here  the  feeling,  the  marvelling,  is  occasioned 
by  what  we  see. 


78  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEVELLOVS. 

be  the  transcendeutal  persuasiou  that  there  is  a  reality,  a  real- 
ness,  to  the  spiritual  truth  emboclied  there?  Is  not  the  very 
transcendental  character  of  that  persuasion  of  reality  the  very 
cry  of  TertuUian?  just  the  marvel-bred  assumption  of  another 
infinite  world,  not  limited,  like  this  world,  by  the  possible? 
Other  minds  find  themselves  half-believing  in  the  marvellous 
reincarnation  drama  in  Rider  Haggard's  two  books,  She  and 
Ayesha.  So  the  tale  of  examples  might  progress  indefinitely.  Nor 
is  it  claimed  here  that  in  every  example  the  vividness  of  the 
marvel  alone  produces  the  impulse  to  a  belief  in  the  reality  of  the 
object;  such  impulses  are  of  course  complex.  But  it  is  claimed 
that  vivid  marvelling  aids  that  im]nilse  mightily. 

What  admits  of  this  initial  vividness  of  marvel  is,  of  course, 
a  certain  show  of  probability, — just  the  show  that  will  be  suf- 
ficient at  first  to  impose  upon  the  degree  of  rationality  possessed 
by  the  individual.  "Probable  impossibilities,"  says  Aristotle, 
"are  to  be  preferred  to  improbable  possibilities."*^  "When  this 
condition  is  united  with  a  great  initial  intensity  of  marvel,  even 
the  sternest  of  logical  minds  wavers,  and  remembers  fearfully 
that  after  all  we  move  in  a  world  unknown,  against  a  black 
background  of  infinite  possibility.  ^Marvel  makes  belief,  and 
belief  makes  marvel:  they  act  upon  each  other  in  a  circular 
fashion — a  vicious  circle,  maybe — but  a  circle  surely! 

Let  us  consider  again  the  necessity  of  belief  to  marvel.  Be- 
lief is,  indeed,  necessary  to  all  cases  of  wonder,  particularly  to 
the  marvellous;  but  only  in  certain  degrees  or  measures  is  it 
consonant  with  the  continuance  of  that  emotion.  We  have  al- 
ready noticed  the  ridicule  that  results,  instead  of  marvelling, 
when  the  impossible  encounters  perfect  disbelief.  To  such  dis- 
belief a  unicorn  is  a  stimulus  to  impatience  and  raillery,  and 
the  marvellous  is  a  synonym  for  the  exploded  beliefs  and  fancies 
of  crude  ages  or  uneducated  masses.  Indeed,  there  exists, 
through  the  medium  of  belief,  a  curious  relation  between  the 
marvellous  and  the  comic.  The  two  are  quarrelsome  first  cousins, 
as  it  were.  Given  a  belief  of  some  sort — actual  or  poetic — in 
the  improbabilities  and  impossibilities  of  medieval  romances, 
and  wonder  and  marvel  stand  forth  claiming  our  serious  delight 


■»-  See  above,  p.  39. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WONDEB.  79 

and  reverence;  but  given  a  disbelief  in  the  same  objects— in 
magical  swords,  and  astonishing  prowess,  and  miracles  of  the 
Graal — and  immediately  the  mockery  of  Cervantes  routs  the 
marvellous  with  a  flapping  of  windmills.  To  Butler  the  wonder- 
prating  Puritan  becomes  a  Hudibras;  Swift  sneers  out  his  dis- 
belief in  The  Tale  of  a  Tuh.  All  marvels  become  comic  when 
deserted  by  belief;  but  all  comedy  by  no  means  becomes  mar- 
vellous when  nurtured  by  a  careful  belief.  Thus,  the  underlying 
pretension  of  the  marvellous — its  basic  weakness  of  the  fictitious 
and  of  an  imaginative,  a  priori  assumption — is  exposed,  in  con- 
trast to  the  greater,  simpler  truth  of  comedy.  Comedy  is  the 
cure  of  the  marvellous,  its  natural  antidote — the  antidote  found 
in  close  proximity  to  the  dangerous  object,  just  as  in  the  field 
(it  used  to  be  said)  nature  always  arranges  poison  and  antidote 
side  by  side. 

But  the  individual  who  passes  from  the  intellectual  stage 
that  ridicules  the  older  marvels,  to  the  further  stage  of  a  seri- 
ous, philosophical  skepticism,  is,  curiously  enough,  again  on 
the  road  to  marvel.  When  the  universe  becomes  one  great  hesi- 
tation, and  doubt,  or  even  agnosticism,  confronts  the  mind  at 
every  turn,  there  comes  stealing  back  upon  the  heart  the  sense 
of  everlasting  mystery  and  wonder.  The  skeptic  has  purified 
the  mystery  of  life  of  its  anthropomorphic  thaumaturgy,  but  in 
doing  that  he  has  cut  loose  from  certain  relations  that  pretended 
to  explain  things  by  man-conceived  marvels:  the  original  mys- 
tery— more  mysterious  than  the  man-made  marvel — confronts 
him  forever.  He  finds  himself  in  the  position  of  philosophic 
wonder,  already  described  above  as  the  sixth  case  under 
the  relations  of  rarity,  explanation,  and  wonder."  Indeed,  the 
historical  and  psychological  course  of  the  development  of  won- 
der may  be  said  to  reach  from  anthropomorphic  thaumaturgy, 
through  the  burlesque  and  parody  and  satire  of  that  thauma- 
turgy, on  to  the  philosophic  wonder  of  the  serious  skeptic  or 
agnostic. 

But  full  and  perfect  belief  is  only  less  dangerous  to  the  mar- 
vellous than  full  disbelief.  For  by  full  belief  the  marvel  is 
quickly  assimilated,  is  associated  in  a  hierarchy  of  similar  im- 

<■*  See  above,  p.  65. 


80  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEFELLOUS. 

possibilities,  and  so  is  laid  open  to  the  constant  danger  of  losing 
its  anomalous  character  and  of  blunting  its  uniqueness  in  the 
mass  of  the  fully  accommodated.  The  impossibility  ceases  act- 
ively to  be  felt  as  such.  The  extreme  case  of  this  sort  is  that 
of  the  undeveloped  or  uncritical  miiul  that  has  accepted  marvels 
as  matters  of  fact,  relying  implicitly  upon  authority, — as  a  child 
in  his  religious  belief,  or  a  savage  in  his  traditions.  To  the 
unlearned  mind,  incapable  of  conceiving  of  transgressions  of 
natural  law,  no  conception  of  impossibility  as  such  is  possible. 
Minor  wonder  such  a  mind  may  experience  when  rarities  in  its 
narrow  daily  experience  occur;  but  marvels  of  creation,  demi- 
urgic power,  and  the  like,  suggest  no  further  wonder  than  that 
accompanying  the  sense  of  exaggerated  power.*'*  Such  a  mind 
may  wonder,  but  it  cannot  marvel. 

Somewhere,  then,  between  absolute  disbelief  and  perfect  be- 
lief, somewhere  in  the  region  of  alternating  doubt  and  belief,*" 
but  with  the  greater  weight  on  the  latter,  lies  that  degree  or 
sort  of  belief  that  is  the  greatest  abettor  of  wonder  and  marvel. 

Before  leaving  this  important  clue  of  belief  it  will  be  well 
to  summarize  the  relations  of  belief  to  the  five  cases  of  improba- 
bility drawn  up  above.*^ 

I.  Very  often  the  exploration  of  an  improbability  reduces 
the  case  of  improbability  to  one  of  mere  rarity.  The  mysterious 
disappearance  of  Ludovico,*®  for  instance,  from  the  haunted 
room  in  the  castle,  seems  due  to  the  awful  influence  of  the  un- 
quiet spirits  who  were  supposed  to  infect  the  chamber.  But 
when  this  improbability,  or  impossibility,  is  explained,  some 
chapters  later,  by  the  information  that  certain  bandits  had  been 
in  the  habit  of  entering  the  room  through  a  secret  tunnel  and 


45  See  below,  p.  94. 

48  If  the  term  belief  were  generally  understood  to  mean  just  this  alter- 
nation, the  greater  part  of  this  attempt  at  specification  of  meaning  would 
of  course  be  unnecessary.  Professor  Baldwin  argues  that  "a  conflict 
between  the  established,  the  habitual,  the  taken  for  granted,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  new,  raw,  and  violent,  on  the  other  hand,  is  necessary  to 
excite  doubt,  which  is  the  preliminary  to  belief."  (J.  M.  Baldwin,  Men- 
tal Development,  New  York  1000,  p.  .32.3  and  Note  1.)  But  the  confusion 
between  philosophical,  scientific,  and  popular  uses  of  the  word  appears  to 
make  necessary  an  extended  statement  of  the  relation  of  "belief"  to 
wonder  and  marvel. 

47  See  above,  pp.  71-73. 

48  See  above,  p.  71. 


TRE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WONDEB.  8J 

making  it  their  rendezvous,  and  that  they  had  carried  off  Ludo- 
vico  through  this  tunnel,  the  improbability  is  at  once  reduced  to 
the  rank  of  a  mere  rarity.  Such  reductions  in  rank  leave  the 
improbability  in  one  or  the  other  of  the  first  two  cases  of  mere 
rarity.*^ 

(a)  Now,  if  one's  belief  has  been  excited  by  such  a  spurious 
improbability  as  that  of  the  spiriting  away  of  Ludovico,^**  the 
explanation  that  shows  that  the  improbability  was  really  only  a 
cheat  of  seeming,  leaves  the  believer  annoyed  at  the  trick  that  has 
been  played  upon  him, — often  so  annoyed  that  he  loses  not  only 
his  first  marvel,  but  also  any  wonder  that  otherwise  might  have 
attached  to  the  rarity  of  the  unsuspected  and  skilfully 
hidden  tunnel.  Disbelief  in  the  improbability,  on  the  other 
hand,  would  only  have  its  attendant  ridicule  of  the  mystery 
aggravated  by  the  explanation  of  the  marvel's  spurious  char- 
acter. 

(b)  In  the  case  of  Rappacini 's  daughter,^^  where  the  improb- 
ability of  her  weird  beauty  is  "explained"  by  the  further  im- 
probability of  her  diet  of  poisons,  the  very  retention  of  the 
attitude  of  marvelling  is  dependent  upon  one's  belief  in  the  sec- 
ond improbability^  Otherwise  the  explanation  would  not  ex- 
plain, but  would  only  heap  further  ridicule  upon  a  circumstance 
already  under  smiling  suspicion.  The  explanation  of  improba- 
bility by  improbabilities  is  illogical ;  but  belief  is  not  cast  down 
by  the  lack  of  logic,  and  out  of  the  irrationality  springs  the 
marvel. 

II.  (a)  Where  no  explanation  of  the  improbability  is  given, 
full  belief  in  the  improbability  practically  reduces  all  possible 
cases  of  unexplained  improbability  to  the  third  ease  above,'^- — 
where  familiarity  with  the  marvel  destroys  its  emotional  sugges- 
tiveness.  In  romance,  full  belief  in  the  improbable  prowess  of 
the  Christian  conquerors  of  the  Saracens  renders  that  prowess 
almost  as  matter-of-fact  as  does  its  constant  repetition.  The 
sense  of  contrast  with  modern  feats  of  arms  is  always  present, 


49  See  above,  p.  63. 

80  Case  No.  I,  above,  p.  71. 

51  Case  No.  II,  above,  p.  71. 

52  See  above,  p.  71. 


82  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEFELLOUS. 

but  the  sense  of  that  difference,  and  its  imaginative  apprecia- 
tion, are  dulled  alike  by  endless  repetition  of  the  marvel  and 
by  an  absolute,  matter-of-fact  belief  in  its  reality.  Again,  full 
belief  in  Beatrice  Rappacini — with  absolutely  no  question  or 
doubt — would  be  equivalent,  practically,  to  living  among  a  J\Iary- 
Smith-multitude  of  Beatrice  Rappacinis. 

(6)  A  vacillation  of  belief  and  doubt  (i.e.,  belief  proper) 
in  connection  with  an  unexplained  improbability,  results  in  an 
extension  of  the  fourth  case."  That  case,  it  may  be  recalled,  is 
the  one  where  the  sense  of  the  improbable  is  not  lost  by  an 
ascertained  explanation,  but  eventuates  in  a  marvel  which  is 
subject  to  the  corroding  effect  of  time.  Now,  belief  in  improba- 
bility is  of  course  necessary  to  a  sense  of  the  marvellous.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  a  belief  in  the  marvel  may  involve  quite  defi- 
nitely the  irrational  hypothesis  of  spiritual  or  other  super- 
natural power.  If  so — if  belief  applies  this  hypothesis  to  the 
explanation  of  the  original  improbability — we  have  as  an  ex- 
planation what  may  itself  be  regarded  as  an  improbability  or 
impossibility.  An  improbability  "explains"  an  improbability. 
Such  a  twist  to  the  case  carries  us  over  at  once  into  the  second 
case,  just  mentioned;  and,  in  turn,  as  a  result  of  the  high  degree 
of  rarity  involved,  there  is  also  a  tendency  to  arrest  that  case's 
rule  of  the  decreasing  vividness  of  the  marvel.  Moreover,  the 
marvellous  circumstance  associated  with  the  greater  marvel  of 
spiritual  or  magical  power  is  always  and  easily  susceptible  of 
revivification.  A  great  variety  of  circumstances  are  continually 
ministering  to  the  revival  of  the  marvel  of  the  spirit.  Belief 
and  its  supernatural  marvel  may  tire  at  times,  may  nod,  and 
mumble  their  creed;  but  they  are  only  napping, — they  are  not 
dead.  Hope,  humbug,  and  the  belief  in  the  supernatural  spring 
eternal  in  the  human  breast. 

(c)  Full  disbelief  in  an  unexplained  improbability  naturally 
results  in  a  spirit  of  ridicule  that  ekes  out  what  it  lacks  of 
explanation  of  the  improbability,  and  of  confirmation  of  its 
own  skeptcism,  with  a  continual  and  repeated  satire.  Unable 
to  congratulate  itself  upon  its  own  acumen,  as  in  \ho.  case 
of  the  spurious  marvel  of  Ludovico's  disappearance,  and  rather 


•''3  See  above,  p.  72. 


TEE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WONDEE.  83 

inherently  weakened  by  the  continual  suggestion  of  "it  might 
have  been, "  disbelief  nevertheless  makes  a  successful  front  against 
the  impossible  by  at  once  denying  in  toto  the  possibility  of  super- 
lawful  forces  and  agencies;  and  it  lends  the  influence  of  this 
skeptical  position  toward  the  impossible  to  its  disbelief  in  the 
improbable.  Here,  of  course,  belong  the  great  marvel  burlesques 
of  the  world.  From  Don  Quixote  to  A  Yankee  at  King  Arthur's 
Court,  the  fun-making  progresses  in  varied  measure  and  kind; 
but  always  behind  the  ridicule,  and  usually  untouched  by  its 
Rabelaisian  hand,  lie  the  greater  "impossibles,"  which  can  never 
be  disproved  or  explained.  As  soon  as  the  unbelieving  spirit 
touches  these  it  becomes  of  necessity  serious  and  dreadfully  in 
earnest, — a  first  step  back,  as  has  already  been  said,  to  the  won- 
der-view of  the  universe ;  and  the  entering,  too,  of  the  sixth  typ- 
ical case  of  marvel. 

Finally,  to  come  to  the  end  of  the  clue  of  belief,  it  need 
only  be  said  that  what  has  been  observed  of  the  relation  of  belief 
to  the  improbable  is  also  true  of  its  relation  to  the  impossible, 
with  a  certain  intensification  of  all  the  processes,  due  to  the 
higher  degree  of  "rarity"  involved  in  the  impossible.  The  fol- 
lowing tables  will  serve  to  clarify  those  inter-relations  of  wonder, 
marvel,  rarity,  explanation,  improbability,  impossibility,  and 
belief  that  have  already  been  taken  up  under  the  six  typical  cases. 

A.     MERE   RARITY— EXPLANATION— WONDER. 

I  Seeming  rarity  ceases  with  giving  of  explanation:  wonder 

ceases  immediately. 

II  Actual  rarity  still  remains  after  explanation  has  been  given : 

wonder  retained,  but  with  gradually  decreasing  viv- 
idness. 

III  Rarity  ceases,  although  no  explanation  given :  wonder  speed- 

ily lost. 

IV  Rarity  persists,  and  no  explanation  given :  wonder  gradually 

lost  with  passing  of  time. 

V  Rarity  kept,   explanations   disregarded:   wonder   in  strong 

ascendency. 

VI  Rarity  gained  by  isolation  of  phenomenon  from  its  rela- 

tions :  wonder  in  strong  ascendenev. 


84  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABVELLOUS. 

? 
B.     SENSE    OF    IMPROBABILITY— EXPLANATION— BELIEF- 
MARVELLOUS. 

I  Sense  of  improbability,  followed  by  explanation:  often  re- 

duced to  mere  rarity.    Case  I  or  II  under  A. — Com- 
pare, also,  p.  81,  above. 

II  Sense  of  improbability,  no  explanation : 

(a)  with  full  disbelief:  ridiculous,  instead  of  marvellous. 

(6)  with  full  belief:  matter  of  fact,  instead  of  marvel- 
lous.    Similar  to  ease  III  under  A. 

(c)  with  vacillation  of  belief  and  doubt:  marvellous,  sim- 
ilar to  Case  IV  under  A.,  but  with  greater  initial 
force  and  slower  decline. 

C.     SENSE  OF  iSlPOSSIBILITY— EXPLANATION— BELIEF- 
MARVELLOUS. 

I  Sense  of  impossibility,  followed  by  explanation :  often  re- 

reduced  to  mere  rarity,  Case  I  or  II,  under  A. — Com- 
pare, also,  p.  81,  above. 

II  Sense  of  impossibility,  no  explanation : 

(a)  with  full  disbelief:  ridiculous,  instead  of  marvellous. 

(6)  with  full  belief:  matter  of  fact,  instead  of  marvel- 
lous.    Similar  to  Case  III  under  A. 

(c)  with  vacillation  of  belief  and  doubt:  marvellous,  sim- 
ilar to  Case  IV  under  A,  and  Case  II  (c)  under 
B ;  but  with  far  greater  initial  force  and  far  slower 
decline  than  in  either  of  those  cases. 

One  of  the  chief  characters  of  the  marvellous  may  now  fitly 
be  described.  The  belief  in  the  impossible,  when  felt  as  a  logical 
inconsistency,  leads  always  to  the  adoption  of  a  subterfuge  that 
in  turn  opens  the  way  to  new  and  ever  wilder  marvels.  The 
inconsistency  is  universally  obviated  by  supplying  an  ideal 
standard  of  possibility.  "Not  probable  or  possible  as  things 
go  in  this  world,"  runs  the  remark,  "but  quite  so  in  another 
and  more  spiritual  world!"  Thus  belief  ekes  out  the  paucity 
of  fact.  "Uncertainty,"  as  Bain  says,  "is  the  realm  of  ideal 
possibility,  the  scope  for  imaginative  outgoings."^"* 


''*  Bain,  Emotions  and  the  Will,  p.  222. 


TEE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WONDER.  35 

The  free  fashion  in  which  the  marvellous  disports  itself  iu 
the  ideal  realm  of  imagination  is  the  most  notable  of  its  man- 
ners. And  if  here  its  retainers  are  the  powers  of  imagination, 
its  courts  and  show  places  are  the  creeds  of  religion  and  the 
poetry  of  literature;  for  the  realm  of  the  ideal  may  belong  to 
poetical  belief  or  to  the  faith  of  the  pious  enthusiast.  In  it 
there  is  freedom,— freedom  of  all  third  dimensional  limitations. 
Spirit  rises  from  flesh.  And  this  assertion  of  an  ideal  freedom 
in  connection  with  the  marvellous,  or,  it  may  be  said,  by  the 
marvellous,  is  the  very  circumstance  that  recommended  the  re- 
finement of  medieval  and  other  marvel  to  the  thirsting  souls  of 
the  patriots  and  literary  revolutionists  of  Romanticism.  No 
wonder  that  the  patriots  of  Germany  nursed  and  flaunted  their 
sense  of  marvel!  It  was  for  the  freedom  in  which  those  mar- 
vels moved  and  had  their  being— not  for  the  mere  novelty  and 
strangeness  of  headless  horsemen  and  singing  trees— that  those 
ardent,  anarchistic  souls  longed.  Here  too  was  the  reason  why 
the  slower,  saner  spirit  of  Wordsworth  "  marvellized "  nature 
and  the  commonplace;  and  in  doing  so  he  showed  himself  as 
true  a  romanticist  as  Coleridge,  though  he  went  to  no  medieval 
font  for  his  subject  and  took  no  part  in  the  wild  Schwdrmerei 
of  the  world  beyond  Cumberland.  He  had  tried  the  much- 
vaunted,  revolutionary  freedom,  but  had  found  a  better  one  at 
Rydal  Mount,  more  to  his  liking  and  Dorothy 's.^^ 

The  unfettering  of  imagination  in  this  realm  of  ideal  belief 
demands  the  weight  of  separate  mention,  for  any  description 
of  wondering  that  neglected  to  emphasize  the  part  played  by  the 
inventive  faculty  in  heightening  the  feeling  of  wonder  would  not 

55  Professor  Charles  Mills  Gayley,  in  his  classes  at  the  University  of 
California,  has  long  preached  the  desire  for  freedom  as  the  solvent  for 
the  Romantic  movement;  and  it  is  with  great  interest,  therefore,  that  I 
have  found  myself  in  this  independent  search  into  the  marvellous  again 
and  again  brought  face  to  face  with  just  this  Eeimweh  for  an  ideal 
freedom.  {Cf.  Gayley,  C.  M.,  Hep.  Eng.  Com.,  New  York  1903,  vol.  I, 
Introduction,  Hist.  View  of  Eng.  Com.,  pp.  xx,  Ixxxvii,  et  passim.) 
Indeed,  upon  reflection,  Professor  Gayley 's  observation  has  the  simple 
inevitability  of  the  truth.  Nor  can  I  refrain  from  appending  the 
following  quotation  from  Lazarus:  "Hieraus  erkliirt  sich  psychologisch 
hinlanglich,  weshalb  das  Wunder  des  Glaubens  liebstes  Kind  ist;  der 
Glaube  ist  Sehnsucht  nach  dcm  Unendlichen,  und  hier  driingt  sich  die 
Vorstellung  des  Unendlichen  unmittelbar  bei  der  Erscheinung  eines  End- 
lichon  auf.  Dies  ist  die  Bedeutung  des  ^Yunders  und  ohue  sie  wjiren  die 
Wirkuugen  des  Wunders  sclbst  wuuderbar. '' — Lazarus,  op.  cit.,  p.  29S. 


86  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

deserve  its  name.  Imagination  not  only  creates  the  marvel  of 
story  and  chanson,  but  is  itself  the  creature  of  wonderment.  The 
enthralled  percipient  feels  the  stirrings,  oftenest  vague,  and  so 
the  more  impressive,  of  all  his  imaginative  being,  and  the  aver- 
tissement  of  self  that  ensues  is  one  of  the  dearest,  as  it  is  one 
of  the  most  familiar  of  the  attendants  in  the  train  of  wonder. 
Subtle,  it  is,  too;  possibly  subtlest  of  the  allurements  of  this 
complex  emotion ;  and  therewith  is  revealed  one  of  the  chief 
reasons  for  the  normal  and  almost  universal  desire,  if  not 
appetency,  toward  experiencing  the  emotion.  In  another  chap- 
ter, when  we  turn  more  to  the  historical  side,  or  phylogeny,  as 
it  might  be  called,  of  wonder,  the  subject  of  imaginative  activity 
will  receive  its  due  consideration;  but,  for  the  present,  three 
points  may  be  observed  without  fear  of  too  frequent  repetition : 
the  marvellous  as  a  stimulus  to  imagination,  the  immediate 
reaction  of  the  state  of  marvelling,  and  the  imaginative  exaggera- 
tion of  the  marvellous  object  itself. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  make  clear  and  enforce  the  first  point. 
A  baffled  reason  and  the  failure  of  hypotheses  loose  the  wilder 
freaks  of  mind.  No  longer  held  by  a  rational  outlook,  imagina- 
tion is  left  with  full  title  to  the  most  riotous  of  living.  No 
vagary  is  too  startling  when  the  romance  of  other  worlds 
and  higher  powers,  the  authentication  of  the  actual  existence 
of  which  is  assumed  by  belief,  is  a  perpetual  challenge  to  the 
invention  of  wizards  and  angels,  centaurs  and  seraphim,  apples 
of  Hesperides  and  trees  of  life.  The  marvellous  is  to  the  imagin- 
ation what  sleep  is  to  dreams.  Its  very  nature — its  intangible- 
ness,  its  puzzlement,  its  commerce  with  the  unknown — is  natur- 
ally, perhaps  physiologically,  associated  with  the  imaginative 
function  of  the  mind.  Therefore  it  is,  that,  upon  the  establish- 
ment of  a  state  of  marvelling  by  a  particular  object,  all  the 
vague  crowd  of  other  marvels  and  former  imaginations,  rein- 
forced by  untold  new  levies,  the  spawn  of  the  moment,  flit  upon 
the  mind  with  such  instantaneous  association  and  force  of  sug- 
gestion that  the  marvel  itself  is  increased  a  hundredfold.  Thus, 
eircle-wi.se, •"'"  comes  wonder  stimulating  imagination,  the  latter  in 


t-'J  I    have    borrowed    this    term    from    Professor    Baldwin 's    ' '  circular- 
imitation.  ' '    Cf.  Mental  Development,  pp.  133,  264. 


TEE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WONDER.  87 

turn  reacting  to  heighten  the  wonder,  which,  again,  spurs  on 
imagination  still  further ;  and  so  on  indefinitely.  "We  may  suppose 
these  processes  of  mutual  encouragement  to  persist  until  fatigue, 
or  another  stronger  demand,  produces  a  change  in  attention. 
Often,  however,  they  are  the  means  of  ascension  into  mystical 
trances,  such,  perhaps,  as  those  of  Swedenborg  or  Blake, — states 
that  should  be  studied  in  the  light  of  what  is  known  of  auto- 
suggestion and  hypnosis.  Such  states,  indeed,  form  a  very 
proper  part  of  the  data  present  to  the  hand  of  the  student  of 
wonder  for  analysis  and  classification.  They  are  the  higher 
limits  of  the  subject,  the  marvels  of  wonder.  Nor  should  they 
be  regarded  as  fruitless  of  empirical  results.  What  more  sug- 
gestive, physiologically,  than  the  dream  of  Eliphaz? 

"Now  a  thing  was  secretly  brought  to  me, 
Aud  mine  ear  received  a  whisper  thereof. 
In  thoughts  from  the  visions  of  the  night, 
When  deep  sleep  falleth  on  men, 
Fear  came  upon  me,  and  trembling, 
Which  made  all  my  bones  to  shake. 
Then  a  spirit  passed  before  my  face; 
The  hair  of  my  flesh  stood  up. 

It  stood  still,  but  I  could  not  discern  the  appearance  thereof; 
A  form  was  before  mine  eyes: 
There  was  silence,  and  I  heard  a  voice,     .     .     ."s" 

It  need  hardly  be  pointed  out  now  that  one  of  the  effects 
of  imagination  is  to  magnify  and  exaggerate  the  actual  cause, 
objective  or  subjective,  of  the  marvelling.  The  stimulating  ob- 
ject does  not  remain  the  same  to  the  consciousness  of  the  percip- 
ient, but,  in  the  course  of  all  these  heightening  processes  of  a 
subjective  nature,  is  continually  changing.  What  was  at  first 
a  minor  circumstance  looms  large  in  a  disordered  field  of  marvel 
and  fancy.  Fear  itself  scarcely  magnifies  its  object  more  than 
wonder,  for  it  is  imagination  that  is  let  loose  in  both  cases. 
Who  has  not  given  supernatural  interpretations  to  purely  nat- 
ural effects,  the  agency  of  which  happened  for  the  moment  to 
be    unknown?      The    inexplicable    is    immediately    mj^sterious. 


57  Job  IV,  12-16.  One  need  only  turn  to  medieval  saints'  books  to 
find  similar  descriptions  of  visions  that  come  in  waking  hours.  Cf.,  Jones, 
B.  M.,  Studies  in  Mystical  Edifiion.  London  1909.  For  further  treatment  of 
this  subject,  see  below,  Chapters  III,  IV. 


88  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABVELLOUS. 

Knockings  and  table-turuings  are  immediately  attributed  to 
spirits  of  the  dead.  I  have  known  a  whole  family  to  turn  spir- 
itualists because  of  a  mysterious  tapping  that  was  heard  only 
at  meal-times,  and  that  afterward  proved  to  be  the  chickens  strik- 
ing the  baseboards  with  their  bills  as  they  fed  close  to  the  house. 
That  family  in  its  first  surprise,  its  astonishment,  its  fruitless 
search  after  causes,  its  unsatisfied  curiosity,  wonder,  its  fear, 
imagination,  and  its  final  sense  of  marvel  as  belief  in  spiritual- 
istic phenomena  da\\Tied,  afforded  as  vivid  and  typical  a  case 
of  w'ondering  with  all  its  allied  and  concomitant  states  as  could 
be  desired.  And  in  the  course  of  it  all  the  chance  peckings  of 
a  few  domesticallj'^  inoffensive  and  greedy  brown  leghorns  rose 
to  the  height  of  direct  communications  from  the  Unknown. 

Finally,  a  word  about  the  clue  of  fear.  Fear  is  often  found 
associated  with  the  uncertainty  of  doubt  and  with  the  durating 
sense  of  strangeness  that  characterize  a  well-developed  state  of 
marvel.  It  is  not  hard  to  appreciate  the  naturalness  of  this 
combination  when  the  disturbing  nature  of  the  marvellous,  its 
lack  of  adaptation,  is  put  side  by  side  with  the  element  of  shock 
from  the  strange  and  unkno\\Ti  that  so  often  is  the  cause  of 
fear.  The  relations  between  fear  and  the  new  and  unexpected 
are  too  well  known  to  need  any  elaboration  here,  but  a  caution 
in  the  matter  is  to  be  registered.  Care  must  be  taken  to  avoid 
confusing  the  fear  that  is  associated  with  wonder  and  marvel 
and  the  fear  that  goes  with  surprise.  Sully  is  in  danger  of 
offending  here  when  he  says:  *'0n  the  other  hand,  wonder  is 
related  as  a  disturbing  shock  to  the  emotion  of  fear.  "^®  The 
word  shock,  as  it  stands  in  the  quotation,  suggests  the  suddenness 
and  unpreparedness  of  surprise,  rather  than  a  durating  sense 
of  strangeness.  The  intense  shock,  and  the  spasm  of  fear  fol- 
lowing it,  are  not  conducive  to  wonder,  but  are  rather  directly 
inimical  to  it.  Dominant  fear  is  apt  to  find  the  motor  expression 
of  a  rapid  and  headlong  flight  more  congenial  than  the  luxury 
of  static  wonder.  No!  The  real  role  of  fear  in  wonder  is  a 
subordinate  part, — a  standing  in  the  background  to  lend  to  the 


68  Sully,  op.  cit.,  p.  523. 


TEE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WONBEE.  89 

emotion  richness  and  piercing  vividness,  or  a  lurking,  fascinat- 
ing possibility  of  danger.  Not  the  shock  itself,  but  the  suspense 
of  insecurity,  of  an  immediate  peril,  of  shock  impending,  is 
fear's  contribution  to  wonder.  And  in  the  higher  cases,  where  to 
an  object  more  impressive  there  answers  a  feeling  of  sublimity, 
this  contributive  fear  becomes  awe,  and  promotes  the  religious 
ecstasy  of  a  Jacob  at  Bethel. 

A  sort  of  criterion  of  the  amount  of  fear  proper  to  a  state 
of  wonder  or  marvel  is  furnished  by  the  presence  or  absence 
of  pleasure  derived  from  the  fascination  of  fear.  Too  great 
an  impression  of  fear  is  signalized  by  pain.  Indeed,  the  pleas- 
urable characteristics  of  wondering  are  divided,  probably,  be- 
tween the  peculiar  attraction  of  the  fearful  and  the  sublimer 
gratification  to  be  drawn  from  moving  in  the  ideal  freedom  of  the 
marvellous ;  though  over  and  above  these  two  there  is  to  be  men- 
tioned, of  course,  that  usual  glamor  of  excitement  that  accom- 
panies vivid  activity  of  any  mental  or  motor  process.  Certainly 
these  three  categories  cover  the  field  of  wonder-pleasure.  Run- 
ning through  them  all,  a  special  aspect  no  more  of  one  than  of 
another,  is  that  sense  of  self-gratulation,  that  selt-avertisse77ient 
we  have  already  noticed  in  connection  with  the  activity  of  the 
imagination. °^  To  be  thrilling  with  hippogriffs  and  wishing- 
mats,  or  with  messages  from  the  dead,  or  with  the  miracle  of 
the  oil  of  St.  Walburga,*'"  or  with  the  visions  of  Bohme,  or  with 
the  rending  of  the  veil  and  opening  of  graves  at  the  Passion  of 
Golgotha, — do  not  such  experiences  open  outward  the  door  of 
these  too  earthly  circumstances  of  ours  and  bring  child  or  gray- 
beard,  pagan  or  Christian,  upon  the  threshold  of  that  richer 
life,  that  grander  power,  which  we  all  feel  latent  witliin  us 
because  we  seldom  are  what  we  can  be,  seldom  live  to  our  full 
force,  never  realize  our  dreams  of  what  we  are  and  could  be? 
We  are  dulled  by  the  ordinary ;  the  usual  blunts  our  imagination 
by  making  us  indifferent  to  what  we  see  daily:  but  when  the 
fascination  of  a  subtle  fear  rouses  us  to  nervous  tension,  or  when 
the  impingement  of  the  unusual,  of  the  marvellous,  becomes  the 
magic  philter  of  a  limitless  freedom,  do  we  not  always  feel  that 


59  See  above,  p.  86. 

«o  See  Newman,  Apologia  Pro  Vita  Sua,  London  1902,  pp.  298,  391. 


90  STUDIES  IN  TEE  MAEVELLOUS. 

at  last   we  are  becoming   individual,   above  the   crushing  and 
demagnetizing  forces  of  the  commonplace? 

The  relation  of  fear  to  the  fourth  of  the  six  typical  cases 
should  be  noticed.  In  that  case,  it  will  be  remembered,  rarity,  or 
improbability,  persists,  and  no  explanation  is  given :  continuous 
companionship  with  the  weird  beauty  and  strange  influence  of 
Hawthorne 's  Beatrice,^^  no  explanation  being  vouchsafed,  results 
in  the  gradual  diminution  of  the  initial  marvel.  But  if  the  marvel 
— or  the  wonder,  in  the  case  of  mere  rarity  being  substituted  for 
the  improbable  or  impossible — if  the  marvel  be  attended  with  a 
fear  that  is  lasting  in  character,  this  process  of  diminution  may 
be  checked,  or  even  converted  into  the  exact  opposite, — the  exag- 
geration of  marvel.  One  of  the  best  possible  examples  is  Defoe's 
picture  of  Crusoe's  state  of  mind  after  his  discovery  of  the 
single,  mysterious  footprint  on  the  sand  of  the  lonely  island. 
Fear  of  assault  at  any  moment  kept  the  wonder  of  that  footprint 
vividly  and  continually  before  Crusoe's  mind. 

Thus,  from  whatever  vantage  we  regard  wonder,  it  reveals 
itself  as  extending  no  further  into  human  weakness  and  ignorance 
on  the  one  hand,  than  into  the  hopes  and  longings  of  the  race 
on  the  other.  If  we  choose  our  approach  from  the  "disadapta- 
tion"  of  surprise,  we  either  find  the  suddenness  of  physical 
shock  passing  into  a  wonder  of  the  lesser  kind,  the  power  of 
which  is  gone  as  soon  as  ignorance  of  the  cause  is  dissipated ;  or, 
where  the  surprise  is  occasioned  by  the  unusual,  and  so  involves  a 
mental  discrimination,  we  detect  a  passing  into  a  wonder  of  which 
the  power  varies  according  to  six  cases  when  the  unusuahiess  is 
mere  rarity,  or  rises  to  the  marvellous  when  improbability  and  im- 
possibility are  the  contents  of  the  unusual.®'^  Again,  coming  into 
these  processes,  sometimes  earlier,  sometimes  later,  is  curiosity, — 
the  attempt,  peculiarly  motor  and  teleological,  at  adaptation. 
But,  baffled,  it  exchanges  its  effort  at  a  positive  assimilation  for 
the  best  that  wonder  can  afford, — a  sort  of  negative  accommo- 
dation.    But  where  the  mind  recognizes  instantaneously  that 


61  See  above,  p.  72. 

02  For  fear  of  misunderstanding  we  must  insist  again  that  suddenness 
and  rarity  are  in  the  majority  of  cases  co-existent.  They  are  separated 
only  for  the  purpose  of  analysis. 


TEE  PSYCHOLOGT  OF  WONDER.  91 

there  is  no  probable  or  possible  solution,  there  is  present  imme- 
diately the  acme  of  wonder,  marvelling.  Nor  should  the  similar- 
ity of  these  states  of  intenser  wonder  on  the  one  hand,  to  those 
of  astonishment  or  amazement  on  the  other,  be  the  subject  of 
confusion;  the  difference,  often  hard  to  detect,  lies  between  the 
paralysis-like  cessation  of  function  in  the  latter,  and  the  puzzled, 
dubitative,  indecisive  action  of  the  former.  But  with  the  im- 
probable still  another  element  comes  to  view — the  necessity  of 
belief — which  in  turn  opens  up  the  realms  of  imagination  and 
ideal  freedom.  Fear,  with  its  fascination  and  intensifying 
power,  brings  still  another  facet  into  play,  and  suggests  the 
pleasurable  aspects  of  wonder.  With  these  higher  reaches  of 
subject  and  stimulus,  the  marvellous  proper,  aided  by  the  free- 
dom of  imagination,  and  supported  by  an  idealistic  belief,  makes 
its  climactic  appearance  in  the  field  of  literature.  The  imagina- 
tive and  idealistic  functions  have  always  marked  that  field  for 
their  own  exercise;  it  is  now  clearly  seen  to  be  also  the  field 
that  preeminently  and  distinctively  affords  to  the  marvellous 
the  peculiar  conditions  necessary  to  its  growth.  When  wonders 
become  too  idealized  for  the  crowd,  or  too  unreal  for  the  material- 
ist, they  still  find  in  literature  an  hospitable  welcome  at  the 
hands  of  the  innumerable  company  of  marvels  long  since  domi- 
ciled there,  and,  at  recurring  intervals,  still  regnant  there. 
And  with  every  changing  condition  the  colors  of  human  signifi- 
cance vary  from  the  duller  ones  that  accompany  the  familiar  cases 
of  every-day  wonder — the  brief,  winged  moment  of  sudden 
stimulus  and  pausing  ignorance — to  the  flash  of  gold  and  veil  of 
purple  that  envelop  the  ecstatic  vision  of  seer  and  mystic. 

This  description  gives  us  certain  more  or  less  logical  methods 
of  differentiating  the  various  cases  of  wonder,  and  also  the 
various  steps  which  lead  from  common  wonder  to  the  superlative 
case  of  the  marvellous.  A  certain  artificiality  of  division  in  our 
analysis  and  classification  cannot  be  helped ;  nor  is  it  possible  to 
declare  the  exact  formation  of  wonder.  These  points  of  view 
have  shown  us  constituent  elements  and  suggested  certain  broad 
classes;  but  the  very  come-and-go  character  of  them  all  renders 
it  entirely  beyond  our  power  to  prescribe  the  exact  propor- 
tion in  which  they  make  up  what  is  called  wonder  or  marvel. 


92  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABFELLOUS. 

Each  case  is  a  ease  to  itself, — some  with  more  of  this  and  less  of 
that  ingredient ;  some  omitting  this  to  the  same  extent  that  they 
exaggerate  that  element;  some  involving  one  order  of  sequence 
of  elements,  others  another.  The  description  is  a  striking  justi- 
fication of  Wundt's  words:  "The  more  composite  a  psychical 
process,  the  more  variable  will  be  its  single  concrete  manifesta- 
tions. ""^ 

Finally,  to  close  our  summary  and  comment,  it  will  be  noted 
that  a  detailed  description  of  wondering  has  not  only  resulted  in 
presenting  for  the  emotion  the  same  width  and  variety  of  field 
that  was  found  to  be  indicated  by  the  popular  use  and  definition 
of  the  word  (which  was  to  be  expected),  but  has  also  suggested, 
by  the  marking  out  of  a  regular  and  natural  gradation  from  the 
simplest  to  the  sublimest  cases  of  wonder,  the  correctness  of  our 
intuition  that  the  histor}^  of  words  contains  here  a  testimony 
to  the  common  origin  psychologically  of  two  sets  of  phenomena 
— the  rare  but  entirely  possible  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  pro- 
digious, the  hyper-physical,  on  the  other — which  have  come  in 
the  course  of  civilization  to  be  regarded  as  not  only  widely 
different,  but  also  diametrically  and  significantly  opposed  in 
origin."* 


•Js  Wundt,  op.  cit.,  p.  187. 
64  See  above,  p.  13. 


CHAPTER    III. 

WONDER  IN  PRIMITIVE   MIND,    CUSTOM,   AND  BELIEF. 

What  is  wonderful  to  the  primitive? — Difficulties  in 
answering — Subjective  difficulty — Unreliability  of  data — 
General  description  of  primitive  mind,  custom,  and  belief 
— Preliminary  difficulties  and  objections — Vierkandt  's  pic- 
ture of  primitive  mind  and  belief — Points,  in  primitive 
conditions,  making  against  wonder:  (a)  no  conception  of 
unexceptional  regularity;  (b)  matter-of-fact  character  of 
belief  in  spirits  who  cause  rarities;  (c)  no  impossibility 
possible  to  primitive  consciousness;  (d)  primitive  curi- 
osity not  favorable  to  wonder;  (e)  primitive  belief  and 
imagination  not  favorable  to  wonder;  (f)  magic  as  'scien- 
tific'; (g)  animism — Points,  in  primitive  conditions,  making 
for  wonder:  (a)  segregated  nature  of  gods;  (6)  of  priest; 
(c)  of  magician;  (d)  of  magic  as  'magical';  (e)  of  taboo; 
(f)   exaggeration — Summary. 

In  turning  to  the  beginnings  of  wonder  in  primitive  culture, 
no  difficulty  need  be  experienced  in  collecting  cases  that  to  a 
modern  sophisticated  standard  of  the  usual  and  possible  will  seem 
marvellous.  Savage  custom  and  belief  are  full  of  such.  But  a 
difficulty  of  very  real  and  almost  insurmountable  magnitude  con- 
fronts the  student  who  w^ould  know  just  how  far  these  cases 
appear  wonderful  to  the  savage  himself.  Between  our  judgment 
and  his  there  exists  a  gap  as  great  as  that  between  the  architec- 
ture of  a  steel-frame  fireproof  office  building  and  the  slight  in- 
flammable hogan  of  a  Navajo.  INIany  a  detail  of  his  daily  life, 
undertaken  by  the  savage  in  the  torrid  regions  of  Queensland,  or 
in  the  arctic  wastes  of  Alaska,  with  the  sang  froid  of  a  broker 
reaching  for  his  telephone,  appears  as  strange  to  us  as  would  the 
"long-talk"  of  the  broker's  instrument  to  the  savage.  In  their 
customs  of  making  rain  or  sunshine,  and  laying  or  raising  the 
wind,  for  instance,  the  members  of  savage  society  consider  them- 
selves endowed  with  powers  we  should  regard  as  supernatural;^ 


1  See  J.  G.  Frazer,  The  Golden  Bough,  2d  ed.,  London  1900,  I,  81-128. 
Cf.  also  Jevons,  Introd.  to  the  Hist,  of  Eelig.,  2d  ed.,  London  1902,  p.  16. 


i<4  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEVELLOUS. 

but  their  ignorance  of  natural  law  and  human  limitation  never 
for  a  moment  permits  them  any  sense  of  wonder,  and,  to  use  the 
words  of  Lewes  when  lie  speaks  of  the  ready  acceptance  by  simple 
minds  of  illusory  hypotheses, ' '  marvels  are  not  marvellous  to  them, 
for  ignorance  does  not  marvel. ' '-  It  is  no  slight  matter,  therefore, 
to  be  on  guard  against  easily  assuming  that  even  the  wildest 
vagaries  of  primitive  mind  are  J)0)ia  fide  eases  of  wonder  from 
the  original  point  of  view.  The  difficulty  is  of  course  a  subjective 
one.    That  is  acknowledged  at  once. 

Moreover,  the  savage  himself  is  not  present  at  the  examina- 
tion ;  only  his  beliefs  and  customs  as  reported  by  more  or  less 
trustworthy  travelers,  missionaries,  and  ethnologists,  are  in 
evidence.  Nor  has  the  present  writer  had  any  greater  experi- 
ence with  savage  life  than  what,  meagre  enough,  might  be  picked 
up  in  several  summers  spent  with  Indians  on  the  Navajo  and 
Ute  reservations  in  southern  Colorado.  The  sum  of  that  experi- 
ence represents  but  little  beyond  a  full  recognition  of  the  constant 
difficulty  and  error  to  which  a  foreigner's  observation  of  savage 
traits  is  liable  because  of  the  stubborn  reticence  or  crafty  sub- 
terfuge of  the  native.  The  amount  of  absolutely  false  evidence 
submitted  by  zealous  but  unskilled  travelers  or  prejudiced  mis- 
sionaries, is  a  byword  of  every  ethnological  treatise.  Truly, 
betw'een  the  subjective  nature  of  the  problem  and  the  drawbacks 
of  untrustworthy  evidence,  the  difficulty  seems  almost  invincible. 

This  second  difficulty  will  be  met  in  due  time  by  a  careful 
selection  of  examples  from  books  by  professed  and  fully  trained 
ethnologists.  Within  the  last  ten  years  there  has  been,  for- 
tunately, a  great  increase  in  such  material.  But  an  attempt  has 
also  been  made  to  pave  a  way  out  of  the  first  vexation.  The  prin- 
ciples established  in  the  previous  chapter  are  in  part  the  required 
solution.  There  the  description  of  wondering  as  we  ourselves 
experience  it  puts  into  our  hands  a  very  real  standard  to  aid  us 
in  the  subjective  puzzle.  Thus,  in  view  of  that  standard,  we  must 
now  note  and  emphasize  the  fact  that  the  control  of  sun  and  rain, 
to  take  the  same  illustration,  appears  no  unusual  power  to  our 
savage ;  it  involves  nothing  of  inexplicable  suddenness,  nothing 
of  mysterious  rarity,  nothing  of  impossibility.    It  is,  on  the  con- 


2  G.  H.  Lewes,  Problems  of  Life  and  Mind,  3d  eel.,  Loinlon  1874,  I,  337. 


WONDER  IN  PRIMITIVE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.        95 

trary,  a  usual  occurrence,  a  custom,  the  habit  of  each  individual. 
Therefore,  no  sense  of  the  marvellous  is  present  to  the  performer. 
Again,  any  Bushman  hunter  who  finds  himself  returning  to  camp 
late  in  the  afternoon  puts  a  lump  of  earth  in  the  crotch  of  a  tree 
to  retard  the  sun's  decline.^  There  is  here,  say  those  who  have 
observed  such  acts,  no  sense  of  performing  a  wonderful  deed; 
but  our  own  examination  into  the  processes  of  wondering  would 
have  told  us  that  immediately.  The  testimony  of  the  observer  is 
only  corroboration, — proof  of  the  correctness  of  our  principle. 
Of  course  the  application  of  the  principles  here,  rests  upon  a 
hidden  premise,  but  one  that  requires  bare  mention  in  order  to  win 
immediate  acquiescence, — the  premise  that  the  primitive  mind 
works  in  the  same  fashion  as  the  civilized  mind.  It  is  easy  to  cite 
agreement  with  this  obvious  fact.  Professor  Tylor  writes:  "If 
any  one  holds  that  human  thought  and  action  were  worked  out  in 
primaeval  times  according  to  laws  essentially  other  than  those  of 
the  modern  world,  it  is  for  him  to  prove  by  valid  evidence  this 
anomalous  state  of  things,  otherwise  the  doctrine  of  permanent 
principle  will  hold  good,  as  in  astronomy  or  geology."*  Pro- 
fessor Brinton  devotes  several  pages  to  the  matter,  speaks  of  the 
"cardinal  and  basic  truth  of  the  unity  of  action  of  man's 
intelligence, '  '^  and  is  at  pains  to  cite  Granger,*'  Post,^  Hartland,^ 
Buchmann,^  Honegger,^'^  and  Bastian,^^  to  the  same  effect. 
Spencer  goes  into  the  matter  at  length  in  his  Principles  of 
Sociology;^-  and  Principal  Jevons  treats  of  it  most  conscien- 
tiously.^^ 

With  this  almost  axiomatic  truth  once  granted,  there  can  be 
no  objection  to  applying  our  general  principles  of  wonder  to 


3  E.  M.  Curr,  llie  Australian  Race,  I,  50. 

4  E.  B.  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  4th  ed.,  London  1903,  I,  33. 

5  D.   G.   Brinton,   Religions  of  Primitive  Peoples,  New  York   1899,   pp. 
6-10. 

6  Granger,    The    Worship    of   the   Romans,   p.   vii. 

"^  A.  H.  Post,  Grundriss  der  ethnologischen  Jurisprudens,  Bd.  i,  s.  4. 

8  S.  Hartland,  The  Science  of  Fairy  Tales,  p.  2. 

9  Buchmann,  Zeitschrift  fiir   Vblkerpsychologie,  Bd.   xi,   s.   124. 

10  J.  J.  Honegger,  Allgemeine  Culturgeschichte,  Bd.   1,  s.  332. 

11  Bastian,  Grundsiige  der  Ethnologic,  s.  73. 

12  H.  Spencer,  Principles  of  Sociology,   §  52. 

13  Jevons,  op.  cit.,  Chap.  TV. 


96  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEVELLOUS. 

primitive  culture.  Ignorance,  indeed,  to  recur  to  Lewes'  phrase, 
cannot  marvel  at  what  is  not  known  to  be  unusual  or  impossible; 
but  ignorance  is  a  relative  matter,  and  as  soon  as  there  is  any 
mental  development  there  arises  per  se  the  possibility  of  wonder. 
In  order,  however,  to  apply  our  principles,  we  must  know  some- 
thing of  the  general  character  of  the  primitive  mind,  of  its  ap- 
proximate stage  of  knowledge  and  mental  complexity ;  something 
of  its  general  attitude  toward  its  environment  as  expressed  in 
customs  and  beliefs.  Otherwise,  the  usual  could  not  be  separated 
from  the  unusual;  nor  could  we  determine  at  what  point  in 
early  consciousness  the  impossible  takes  its  rise.  It  is  proposed, 
therefore,  to  preface  the  account  of  actual  cases  of  primitive 
wonder  by  a  brief,  general  survey  of  the  mental  and  emotional 
characteristics,  and  most  important  traits  of  custom  and  belief, 
that  are  universally  found  to  distinguish  primitive  society.  Such 
a  task  might  appear  one  of  supererogation  in  view  of  all  that  has 
been  said  upon  this  fascinating  subject  by  Tylor,  Lang,  Spencer, 
Frazer,  and  a  multitude  of  others  both  at  home  and  abroad,  were 
it  not  such  an  important  step  in  the  present  line  of  argument. 
Moreover,  in  summarizing  the  observations  of  the  ethnologists 
and  folk-psychologists  upon  these  general  points,  it  will  be  pos- 
sible to  focus  all  the  material  upon  the  one  particular  point  of 
our  inquiry;  and  thus,  when  we  are  ready  to  touch  upon  the 
actual  cases  of  wonder,  there  will  be  present  not  only  a  body  of 
general  knowledge  about  customs  and  beliefs,  to  give  us  a  standard 
for  separating  the  usual  from  the  unusual,  but  also  a  certain 
familiarity  with  the  possible  extent  and  chief  directions  of  the 
wondering  activity  in  the  savage's  mind.  Our  a  posteriori  stand- 
ard will  be  supplemented  by  the  possibility  of  a  priori  reasoning. 
At  the  outset  of  such  a  survey,  one  general  objection,  with 
several  aspects,  becoming  more  and  more  serious  of  late,  must  be 
engaged.  Perhaps  the  learned  have  created  a  new  mythological 
hero,  and  named  him  Primitive  ]\Ian  !  Let  us,  therefore,  they  say, 
confine  ourselves  to  savage  and  barbaric  men,  to  actual  cases,  and 
leave  generalization  aside !  Who  ever,  it  is  objected,  saw  a  primi- 
tive man  ?  What  is  this  primitive  that  you  all  talk  about  ?  Where 
is  he,  or  when  did  he  live?"  "Primitive,"  answers  Professor 
Brinton,  "to  the  ethnologist  means  the  earliest  of  a  given  race  or 


WONDER  IN  PEIMITIVE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.         97 

tribe  of  whom  he  has  trusty  information.  It  has  reference  to  a 
stage  of  culture,  rather  than  to  time. ' '"  Again,  Professor  Dewey 
very  wisely  voices  a  further  objection  against  that  ethnological 
method  which  throws  together  under  a  single  classification  data 
drawn  from  societies  in  widely  differing  stages  of  development.^^ 
Finally,  it  must  alwaj^s  be  remembered  that  "specialized  as  they 
are  in  correspondence  wath  our  thoughts,  our  words  do  not  rep- 
resent truly  the  thoughts  of  the  savage;  and  often  entirely  mis- 
represent them."^''  Indeed,  the  whole  difficulty  of  presenting  a 
general  picture  of  primitive  cultural  conditions  may  be  compared 
with  the  attempts  of  moderns  to  epitomize  the  natural  character- 
istics of  their  own  or  of  a  foreign  people.  Bryce's  American 
Commonwealth,  the  efforts  of  Dickens,  Arnold,  or  JNIax  0  'Rell  at 
national  and  racial  portraiture,  or  the  famous  essay  of  Renan 
upon  the  Semites,  afford  familiar  examples  of  the  mingled  success 
wholly  unknown  to  the  early  savage,  or  else,  in  their  equivalents, 
and  shortcomings  of  such  work.  How  much  more  open  to  mistake 
is  the  subject  of  primitive  life, — with  its  distance,  though  it  may 
be  less  complex ;  with  the  danger  of  too  great  generalization  from 
data  of  unlike  strata,  though  the  difference  may  be  less  than 
between  modern  strata ;  with  the  perpetual  difficulty  of  apprecia- 
tion and  expression  due  to  the  fact  that  our  very  words  are  either 
quite  differently  understood  by  him !  In  spite  of  all  these  objec- 
tions, however,  the  actual  observations  of  tribes  here  and  hordes 
there  are  seen  upon  a  careful  scrutiny  plainly  to  reveal  certain 
great  tendencies;  and  these  tendencies  of  character  and  custom 
may  be  combined  to  present  a  sort  of  composite  of  so-called  primi- 
tive culture.  Not  any  one  actual,  individual  case,  but  the  pre- 
dominating tendency  of  a  multitude  of  cases  toward  this  or  that 
character  or  custom,  is  all  that  a  self-conscious  history  or  descrip- 
tion of  peoples  can  hope  to  give.  There  were  romantic  spirits 
in  the  days  of  Pope  and  Swift,  of  Addison  and  Dryden — plenty  of 
them ;  but  the  predominating  tendency  was  nevertheless  toward 
an  artificial  classicism  :  there  are  keen,  refiective,  reasoning  minds 
among  the  Botocudo  or  even  the  Veddahs ;  but  the  predominating 


14  Op.  cit.,  p.  11. 

15  Dewey,    J.,   Interpretation    of   Savage   Mind    (Psychological    'Review, 
Vol.  IX,  No.  3,  p.  217,  May,  1902). 

16  Spencer,  Op.  cit.,  §  116. 


98  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEVELLOVS. 

mental  tendency  is  one  of  sluggishness  and  stupidity.  It  is  these 
tendencies,  then,  let  it  be  repeated,  that  are  here  combined  to  form 
a  typical  picture  of  savage  life. 

Vierkandt"  has  summarized  the  attempts  made  by  Remusat, 
Gustav  d'Eichthal,  Karl  von  den  Steinen,  Klemms,  Lippert, 
Peschel,  Bagehot,  Ratzel,  and  Spencer  to  differentiate  Kultur- 
volker  and  Naturvdlker.  His  own  account  of  the  mythological 
mode  of  thinking  has  been  rendered  in  the  following  brief :  "Sub- 
jectively considered,  the  presence  of  contradictions  is  to  be  noted, 
although  there  is  a  sort  of  logical  coherence  if  certain  peculiar 
premises  are  granted.  The  primary  difference  between  this 
degree  of  thinking  and  the  scientific  lies,  then,  in  a  difference 
of  premises,  which  is  found  negatively  in  the  absence  of  the  con- 
ception of  unexceptional  regularity,  positively  in  the  belief  in 
spiritual  beings  whose  actions  cannot  be  predicted  by  calcula- 
tion and  whose  motives  are  whimsical.  From  the  narrowness  of 
consciousness  and  the  overwhelming  power  of  the  mechanism  of 
association  it  follows :  (a)  that  consciousness  abides  by  that  which 
is  perceived  by  the  senses.  There  is  a  lack  of  power  to  under- 
stand anything  at  all  abstract,  hence  all  'becoming,'  which  is 
more  abstract  than  objects.  Thus,  also,  it  is  impossible  to  con- 
ceive of  'spirit'  aside  from  an  objective  entity.  (6)  That  every- 
where there  is  a  joining  of  thoughts  according  to  purely  external 
association.  Consequently  there  is  lacking  a  proper  causal  con- 
ception, which  has  its  starting  point  in  the  conformity  of  all 
phenomena  to  law.  Objectively,  the  following  points  are  to  be 
emphasized:  (a)  propensity  to  personification;  (6)  the  spiritual 
as  material;  (c)  processes  are  transformed  into  objects,  and  then 
often  personified,  as  sickness,  disease,  etc. ;  (d)  the  cause  of  a 
thing  is  never  sought  inside  itself,  but  always  externally,  as 
death;  (e)  there  is  no  becoming  and  growing  from  within,  but 
only  an  external  origin — "once  upon  a  time" — no  continuity, 
but  intermittent  activity;  (/)  the  whole  has  the  properties  of  the 
parts,  and  vice  versa;  (g)  similar  things  have  similar  properties; 
(h)  things  that  originally  went  together,  but  were  later  sep- 
arated,  are  still  regarded  as  a  connected  whole.     The  entire 


17  Vicrkandt,  A.,  Naturvolkcr  und  Kulturvulkcr,  Leipzig  1896,  p.  1  ff. 


WONDEB  IN  PRIMITIVE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.        99 

method  of  thought  clearly  rests  upon  the  basis  of  mere  objective 
perception, — the  world  consisting  of  a  collection  of  bodily  things, 
each  body  an  independent  being  and  homogeneous  whole,  with 
unchangeable  characteristics,  but  with  the  power  of  divisibility. 
So  there  is  no  idea  of  inner  causation  or  gradual  evolution,  but 
only  of  personal  causation,  and  the  metamorphosis  of  one  body 
into  another.  "^^ 

We  may  now  pause  before  this  picture  of  tendencies  for  the 
purpose  of  comment  and  interpretation  in  behalf  of  wonder.  It 
should  be  noted,  first  of  all,  that  primitive  thought  is  not  made  too 
simple.  Our  search  for  literary  beginnings  does  not  involve  a 
genetic  study  of  mind;  it  carries  us  back  only  to  a  stage  of 
consciousness  that  is,  relatively  speaking,  highly  developed, — as 
high  in  the  scale  of  consciousness,  perhaps,  as  the  human  species 
is  in  the  organic  scale.  And  the  long  line  of  evolution  before  that 
stage,  the  long  line  of  progenitors  of  our  articulate,  verse-making, 
ritual-dancing  savage,  gives  indeed  to  the  stage  we  are  consider- 
ing a  de  facto  jejune  and  conservative  condition  of  affairs  and 
customs,  and,  therefore,  of  ideas.  The  tyrannical  force  of  complex 
customs  in  totem,  marriage,  and  religious  ceremonies  is  a  matter 
of  too  common  remark  to  require  illustration  here.  In  fact,  as 
Professor  Baldwin  says,  * '  the  relative  force  of  convention,  slavish 
imitation,  worship  of  custom,  seems  to  have  some  relation  to  the 
degree  of  development  of  a  people.  "^^  Primitive  belief  and 
literature  are  not  a  sort  of  sudden,  pre-historic  Elizabethan 
efflorescence ;  they  are  the  outgrowth  of  an  immemorial  past,  of  a 
development  slow,  monotonous,  laborious,  and  uninspired, — do 
not  rise  unannounced  in  an  age  of  great  leavening  and  mental 
freedom,  but  make  their  gradual  appearance  in  the  midst  of  con- 
servatism, custom,  and  cast-iron  habit.  Primitive  mind  is  not 
synonymous  with  a  world-freshness,  with  a  dawning  inspiration 
and  spontaneity  of  invention.  The  Weltanschauung  of  a  people 
in  that  stage  is  far  more  fixed  by  time  and  custom  than  the 
religious  belief  of  a  New  England  Puritan.  There  is  not  that 
division  of  labor  and  specialization  of  production  that  in  more 


IS  For  this  summary  I  am  indebted  to  an  unpublished  article  by  Pro- 
fessor Max  Margolis.     For  the  original,  see  Vierkandt,  op.  cit.,  pp.  252-2.'38. 

10  Baldwin,  op.  cit.,  p.  354. 


100  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

advanced  coniinuuities  produce  a  mental  variety  to  match  the 
economic  differentiation.  All  the  conditions  of  their  life  tend 
toward  quiesence  and  uniformity.  There  is  no  rapid  transit 
and  no  knowledge  of  various  climates  and  continents,  customs 
and  peoples,  to  stir  the  savage  mind ;  no  "  European  event ' ' — no 
crusades — to  begin  a  new  life  of  state  and  thought.  And  yet,  in 
spite  of  all  this,  we  of  a  self-conscious,  critical,  introspective  age, 
in  looking  back  at  the  productions  and  characteristics  of  an 
early  era  of  culture,  experience  at  the  sight  a  sensation  of  novelty, 
simplicity,  spontaneity,  invention :  the  things  of  that  age  are  all 
so  far  removed  from  the  sophistication  of  the  present!  The 
contrast  is  strongly  evident  to  our  imagination.  But  we  then 
proceed  to  attribute  to  that  primitive  age  as  its  ovra  character- 
istics the  very  sensations  we  have  experienced  in  contemplating 
it.  This  is  as  fallacious  and  unscientific  as  it  is  subjective. 
Primitive  simplicity  is  not  nearly  so  simple  as  we  would  have  it ; 
nor  primitive  belief  so  free,  or  primitive  spontaneity  so  spon- 
taneous, as  they  seem. 

In  all  the  activities  that  have  to  do  with  totemic  ceremonies, 
totemic  legends,  marriage  and  initiation  and  intichiutna  rites, 
churinga,  magic,  fetish- worship,  and  the  like,  we  have  the  wit- 
nesses of  a  mental  reaction  upon  the  external  world  that  is  dis- 
tinctly over  and  above  the  mere  physical  demands  for  food  and 
drink  and  shelter.  Moreover,  these  activities,  especially  in  their 
sacred  and  secret  aspects,  occupy  an  extremely  large  and  serious 
position  in  primitive  life.-"  We  are  not  to  pre-suppose,  then,  for 
purposes  of  wonder,  a  total  lack  of  phronemic  development,  or 
even  a  very  great  lack.  Centers  of  complex  association  and 
inference,  of  memory-store  with  a  strongly  habituated  action  (for 
all  these  rites  are,  as  we  have  said,  matters  of  cast-iron  custom), 
are  to  be  granted. 

The  gap  between  the  modern  and  the  savage  intellect  lies 
supremely  in  what  Vierkandt  calls  the  premises.  There  is  no 
conception  of  unexceptional  regularity,  says  Vierkandt.  That 
there  is  no  conscious  concept  I  am  disposed  to  agree;  but  that 
there  is  no  perception  of  irregularity   in   experience   is   quite 


2"  Cf.   Spencer  and   Gillcn,  Northern   Tribes  of  Central  Australia,  New 
York  1904,  pp.  3.3,  34,  249  flp. 


WONDER  IN  PRIMITIVE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.       101 

another  thing.  Unexceptional  regularity  in  the  action  of  the 
laws  of  nature  is  something  that  all  civilized  peoples  are  as  yet 
by  no  means  ready  to  grant;  and  savant  as  well  as  tyro  often 
finds  himself  marvelling :  but  exceptions  in  experience — rarities, 
unusual  happenings  and  forms — are  as  frequently  present  to 
the  savage  as  to  the  citizen, — perhaps  far  more  so.  That 
these  latter  upon  approaching  the  centers  of  stored  experience 
will  produce  surprise,  is  a  statement  that  needs  no  extended 
proof;  for  we  have  already  noticed  the  simple  and  primitive 
character  of  surprise.  If  beasts,  creatures  lower  in  the  organic 
scale  than  man,  experience  surprise  at  an  interruption  of  their 
habitual  reactions,  it  follows  necessarily  that  primitive  man  is 
capable  of  the  same  feeling.  The  assumed  stoicism  of  indifference 
to  surprise  with  which  the  savage  wraps  himself  is  entirely  another 
affair  (as  is  also  the  rational  surprise  mentioned  by  Spencer)-^ 
and  is  a  sign  in  itself  that  his  psychic  life  is  subject  to  very  high 
and  complex  experiences  of  surprise.  The  real  question  is 
whether  his  surprise  can  pass  into  wonder.  All  the  conditions 
are  present, — the  developed  mental  center  and  the  reporting 
facilities.  Is  there  in  the  make-up  of  the  savage  anything  to 
prevent  the  natural  progress  to  wonder? 

There  are  facts  of  a  character  to  prevent  that  progress.  In 
the  first  place,  wonder  as  a  well-established  state  involves,  as  we 
have  seen,  a  certain  duration  of  attention.  It  is  notorious  that 
the  mind  of  the  savage,  like  that  of  the  child,  is  distinguished 
by  a  reluctance  to  fix  its  attention  for  any  protracted  period  upon 
any  single  problem  that  is  not  immediately  and  concretely  con- 
nected with  food-supply  or  some  other  equally  urgent  necessity.^- 
The  ease  with  which  the  attention  of  a  child  or  a  savage  can  be 
diverted,  the  positive  pain  attending  the  attempt  at  severe  mental 
application,  are  matters  not  so  remote  from  our  own  adult  ex- 
perience that  we  can  fail  to  appreciate  their  naturalness  in  the 
mind  untrained  by  long,  assiduous  application.  Spencer  presents 
the  evidence  thus : 

"A  passage  which  Sir  John  Lubbock  quotes  from  Mr.  Sproat's  account 
of  the  Ahts  may  be  taken  as  descriptive  of  the  average  state:  'The  native 
mind,  to  an  educated  man,  seems  generally  to  be  asleep.     ...     On  his 

21  Spencer,  op.  cit.,  §  45. 

22  Cf.  Vierkandt,  op.  cit.,  p.  259. 


102  STUDIES  IN  TEE  MAEVELLOVS. 

attention  being  fully  aroused,  he  often  shows  much  quickness  in  reply  and 
ingenuity  in  argument.  But  a  short  conversation  wearies  him,  particularly  if 
questions  are  asked  that  require  efforts  of  thought  or  memory  on  his  part. 
The  mind  of  the  savage  then  appears  to  rock  to  and  fro  out  of  mere  weak- 
ness.' Spix  and  Martins  tell  us  of  the  Brazilian  Indians  that  'scarcely  has 
one  begun  to  question  him  about  his  language,  when  he  grows  impatient, 
complains  of  headache,  and  shows  that  he  is  unable  to  bear  the  exertion'; 
and  according  to  Mr.  Bates,  '  it  is  difficult  to  get  at  their  notions  on  subjects 
that  require  a  little  abstract  thought. '  When  the  Abipones  '  are  unable  to 
comprehend  anything  at  first  sight,  they  soon  grow  weary  of  examining  it, 
and  cry — What  is  it  after  all?'  It  is  the  same  with  Negroes.  Burton  says 
of  the  East  Africans, '  ten  minutes  sufficed  to  weary  out  the  most  intellectual, ' 
when  questioned  about  their  system  of  numbers.  And  even  of  so  com- 
paratively superior  a  race  as  the  Malagasy,  it  is  remarked  that  they  '  do  not 
seem  to  possess  the  qualities  of  mind  requisite  for  close  and  continued 
thought.'  "23 

In  the  second  place,  the  other  premise  mentioned  by  Vier- 
kandt  interferes  to  change  the  processes  of  wondering  as  we  are 
familiar  with  them.  The  "belief  in  the  influence  of  spiritual 
beings  whose  actions  cannot  be  predicted  by  calculation  and 
whose  motives  are  whimsical,"^*  causes  a  further  interruption 
of  the  progress  to  wonder.  What  happens  objectively  is  this: 
the  rarity  is  immediately  explained  by  reference  to  personal, 
spiritual  causation.  "What  takes  place  subjectively  is  the  im- 
mediate association  of  the  rarity  with  the  second  premise.  The 
process,  moreover,  is  perfectly  logical :  spirits  produce  all  strange 
things;  this  is  a  strange  thing;  the  spirits  have  produced  it. 
The  explanation  is  complete.  The  rarity,  however,  still  exists; 
but  it  is  assimilated  to  a  great  class  of  rarities — those  that  are 
the  insignia  of  spiritual  presences — and  therefore  any  slight  sense 
of  wonder  that  might  have  crept  in  is  doomed  to  speedy  extinc- 
tion. The  experience  thus  resolves  itself  into  the  second  of  the 
six  cases  of  rarity  and  explanation  f^  and  the  result  here  is  only 
more  precipitate  than  that  already  predicted, — a  fading  vivid- 
ness of  wonder.  Moreover,  the  belief  in  these  spiritual  influences, 
if  it  is  so  great  as  to  amount  to  a  universal  premise,  is  of  that 
full  and  perfect  nature  which  is  hardly  consonant  with  wonder.^" 
Spirits,  to  such  belief,  are  matters  of  fact;  and  their  doings,  also, 


23  Spencer,  op.  cit.,  §  43. 
2<  See  above,  p.  98. 

25  See  above,  p.  63. 

26  See  above,  pp.  79-80. 


WONDER  IN  PBIMITIFE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.       103 

are  matters  of  fact,  which,  while  easily  provocative  of  surprise, 
even  of  astonishment,  are  scarcely  conducive  to  wonder,  even  if 
the  savage's  powers  be  equal  to  the  concentration  of  attention 
necessary  to  it.  Unless  some  other  tendency  intervenes  there 
seems  here  but  small  chance  of  wondering. 

Still  less  opportunity  for  marvelling !  For  if  there  is  no  con- 
ception of  unexceptional  regularity,  and  the  belief  in  spiritual 
powers  is  so  absolute  as  to  render  them  matters  of  fact,  primitive 
consciousness  can  conceive  of  nothing  as  impossible.  Consequently, 
the  apotheosis  of  wonder,  the  marvellous,  which  rests  upon  a 
belief  in  the  impossible,  is  not  to  be  expected  within  the  realm 
of  early  psychic  experiences.  Nor  will  a  more  careful  regard  of 
the  nature  of  the  conception  of  unexceptional  regularity  bring 
any  more  encouraging  results.  It  might  be  remarked,  for  in- 
stance, that  this  conception  is  a  splendid  example  of  the  abstrac- 
tion that  is  formed  from  the  wearing  down  of  a  multiplicity  of 
concrete  experiences,  of  that  "true  abstraction"  that  is  "not  a 
singling  out ;  it  is  rather  a  paring  down,  a  wearing  off,  an  erosion, 
due  to  the  progress  in  adjustment  which  the  organ  has  been  able 
to  effect.  "^^  Now,  it  might  be  continued,  although  the  abstract 
conception  of  regularity  may  not  yet  be  formed,  still,  among  the 
concrete  experiences  that  are  on  their  way  to  a  reduction  to 
such  an  abstraction,  there  must  be  acted  out  physically  again 
and  again  experiences  that  are  tending  in  a  contrary  direction 
because  they  are  interruptions  of  regularity;  and  the  opposition 
between  these  interruptions  and  ordinary  experiences  must  be 
felt,  if  not  conceived,  as  irregular  and  impossible.  For  instance, 
a  man  who  can  do  something  no  other  man  can  do,  or  any 
other  similar  anomaly  in  an  order  of  experience  established 
by  every-day  motor  and  sensory  activity,  must  be  felt  at  once 
as  far  transcending  in  power  what  the  individual  percipient 
and  his  fellows  can  do  or  are  in  the  habit  of  experiencing.-* 
From  such,  it  would  be  maintained,  an  incipient  sense  of  the 


27  Baldwin,   op.  cit.,  p.   328. 

28  Cf.  Jevons  on  the  surprise  resulting  from  the  interruption  of  expecta- 
tion or  "the  belief  that  what  has  once  happened  will  in  similar  circumstances 
happen  again"  (op.  cit.,  pp.  17  ff.).  The  norm  of  experiental  regularity 
in  the  life  of  the  primitive  is  thus  contrasted  with  the  animistic  norm: 
"In  their  higher  generalizations,  in  what  Powell  calls  their  'sophiology, ' 
it  appears  that  the  primitive  peoples  are  guided  by  animistic  norms;  they 


104  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABVELLOUS. 

marvellous  might  be  expected.  But,  though  the  observations 
are  undoubtedly  correct,  the  inference  is  erroneous.  Once 
given  such  a  case  of  irregular  experience,  it  is  open  immediately 
to  the  operations  of  spiritual  explanation  and  loss  of  wonder 
just  traced  in  the  two  previous  paragraphs ;  what  seemed  to  be 
a  new  condition  resolves  itself  at  once  into  the  former  case. 
Equally  futile,  then,  with  that  of  wonder,  is  the  quest  of  the 
marvellous  in  primitive  mind,  unless,  as  was  stipulated  before, 
some  other  tendency  intervenes  to  modify  the  operation  of  the 
tendencies  here  represented  as  premises. 

In  order  better  to  check  the  results  so  far  established  it  will 
be  wise  to  examine  the  testimony  as  to  the  general  trend  of 
curiosity,  belief,  and  imagination  among  the  ruder  peoples.  About 
curiosity  there  has  been  a  difference  of  opinion  among  authors. 
Spencer,-^  while  admitting  the  presence  of  strong  curiosity 
among  the  higher  Polynesians,  maintains  that  the  lowest  mental 
state  is  characterized  by  "an  absence  of  desire  for  information 


make  up  their  cosmological  schemes,  and  the  like,  in  terms  of  personal  or 
quasi-personal  activity,  and  the  whole  is  thrown  into  something  of  a  dram- 
atic form.  Through  the  early  cosmological  lore  runs  a  dramatic  consist- 
ency which  imputes  something  in  the  way  of  initiative  and  propensity  to 
the  phenomena  that  are  to  be  accounted  for.  But  this  dramatization  of 
the  facts,  the  accounting  for  phenomena  in  terms  of  spiritual  or  quasi- 
spiritual  initiative,  is  by  no  means  the  whole  case  of  primitive  men 's 
systematic  knowledge  of  facts.  Their  theories  are  not  all  of  the  nature 
of  dramatic  legend,  myth,  or  animistic  life-history,  although  the  broader 
and  more  picturesque  generalizations  may  take  that  form.  There  always 
runs  along  by  the  side  of  these  dramaturgic  life-histories,  and  underlying 
them,  an  obscure  system  of  generalizations  in  terms  of  matter-of-fact. 
The  system  of  matter-of-fact  generalizations,  or  theories,  is  obscurer  than 
the  dramatic  generalizations  only  in  the  sense  that  it  is  left  in  the  back- 
ground as  being  less  picturesque  and  of  less  vital  interest,  not  in  the  sense 
of  being  less  familiar,  less  adequately  apprehended,  or  less  secure.  The 
peoples  of  the  lower  cultures  '  know '  that  the  broad  scheme  of  things  is 
to  be  explained  in  terms  of  creation,  perhaps  of  procreation,  gestation,  birth, 
growth,  life  and  initiative;  and  these  matters  engross  the  attention  and 
stimulate  speculation.  But  they  know  equally  well  the  matter  of  fact  that 
water  will  run  down  hill,  that  two  stones  are  heavier  than  one  of  them, 
that  an  edge-tool  will  cut  softer  substances,  that  two  things  may  be  tied 
together  with  a  string,  that  a  pointed  stick  may  be  stuck  in  the  ground, 
and  the  like.  There  is  no  range  of  knowledge  that  is  held  more  securely 
by  any  people  than  such  matters  of  fact;  and  these  are  generalizations 
from  experience ;  they  are  theoretical  knowledge,  and  they  are  a  matter 
of  course.  They  underlie  the  dramatical  generalizations  of  the  broad 
scheme  of  things,  and  are  so  employed  in  the  speculations  of  the  myth- 
makers  and  the  learned. ' ' — Veblen,  T.,  ' '  The  Evolution  of  the  Scientific 
Point  of  View, ' '  in  The  University  of  California  Chronicle,  Vol.  X,  No.  4, 
pp.  403-404  (Oct.,  1908). 
2»  Spencer,  Op.  cit.,  §  46. 


WONDER  IN  PEIMITIVE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.       105 

about  new  things."  Dr.  Lang^^  will  not  admit  that  even  the 
lower  races  are  at  fault  in  this  respect,  and  proceeds  to  demolish 
Spencer's  evidence.  He  further  claims  that  mythology  is  the 
result  of  the  inquisitive  turn  of  mind  which  universally  belongs 
to  savage  races.  Professor  Giddings  comes  at  the  question  com- 
paratively, from  the  point  of  view  of  the  analogy  supposed  to 
exist  between  the  minds  of  children  and  savages,  and,  discover- 
ing a  relation  between  the  child's  curiosity  and  his  naming 
activity,  would  by  analogy  throw  curiosity  as  far  back  as  the 
practice  by  primitive  man  of  ' '  his  newly  acquired  and  wonderful 
faculty  of  speech. '  '^^  The  wide  variety  of  opinion  indicated  by 
these  three  references  might  perhaps  have  been  avoided  if  the 
term  curiosity  had  been  carefully  defined  in  its  application  to 
those  degrees  of  intelligence  that  are  lower  than  those  amongst 
which  the  term  is  common.  Here,  as  in  the  early  stages  of  the 
development  of  every  body  of  knowledge,  much  confusion  arises 
through  the  use,  where  exact  information  is  to  be  conveyed,  of 
popular  and  loosely  defined  phrases.  If  by  curiosity  there  is 
meant  the  mere  attempt  at  closer,  sensuous  familiarity  with  a 
novel  object,  the  tentative  rubbing  and  mouthing  and  fingering 
of  the  strange  thing,  it  will  be  immediately  admitted  that  such 
curiosity  is  to  be  attributed  not  only  to  savages,  but  also,  and 
most  indubitably,  to  the  lower  animals.  The  craning  necks 
of  fowls,  the  advancing  and  retreating  movements  of  domestic 
or  wild  animals,  are  too  familiar  to  allow  of  any  disagreement 
here.  It  is  to  this  class  of  activities  that  we  have  already  seen 
Professor  James  referring  in  these  words :  ' '  Some  such  suscepti- 
bility for  being  excited  ...  by  the  mere  novelty,  as  such,  of 
any  movable  feature  of  the  environment  must  form  the  instinctive 
basis  of  all  human  curiosity. '  '^^  Nor  is  this  desire  sensuously  to 
experience  the  new  object  a  matter  that  ends  with  the  develop- 
ment of  a  rational  curiosity.  The  Sandwich  Islanders  examining 
Cook's  European  equipments,  exploring  and  stroking  them,  are 
to  be  compared  to  a  civilized  being  involuntarily  fingering  things 
new  to  his  experience.    Whether  or  not  there  is  in  connection  with 


30  Lang,  A.,  Myth,  Eitual  and  Bcligion,  London  1899,  I,  86  fif. 

31  Giddings,  F.  H.,  The  Principles  of  Sociology,  New  York  1896,  p.  227. 

32  James,  W.,  op.  cit.,  II,  429. 


106  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABVELLOUS. 

this  instinctive  curiosity  a  state  of  blank  suspense  that  might  be 
called  the  physiological  analogue  of  wonder,  is,  however,  a  matter 
with  which  we  are  not  concerned.  As  already  remarked,  the 
genetic  study  of  these  matters  is  distinctly  outside  the  present 
province  of  early  mind ;  while  wonder  as  it  has  been  described  in 
the  last  chapter  is,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  a  matter  dis- 
tinctly dependent  upon  that  long  circuit  of  reaction  that  brings 
into  play  the  cerebral  and  rational  functions. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  meant  by  curiosity  a  definite, 
reflective,  ratiocinative  progress,  by  which  the  novel  object  or 
experience  is  made  to  go  through  the  gamut  of  analysis  and 
comparison  in  order  to  be  assigned  to  its  proper  place  in  the 
mental  classification  of  phenomena,  the  task  of  answering  3'ea  or 
nay  to  the  question  of  savage  curiosity  is  more  complicated, 
though  by  no  means  doubtful.  The  degree  of  reflection  present 
in  the  individual  is  indeed  the  key  to  the  whole  mental  difference 
between  the  uncivilized  and  civilized  races ;  nor  is  there,  perhaps, 
any  way  in  which  this  can  better  be  realized  than  by  contrasting 
the  environments  into  which  the  children  of  the  respective  races 
are  born.  A  child  of  modern  civilization  is  not  only  born  into  a 
world  of  a  highly  developed  language,  which  is  freighted  with 
the  reflection  of  centuries,  and  to  which  he  immediately  falls 
heir,  but  he  also  grows  up  in  the  midst  of  a  world  of  thought- 
monuments, — of  houses,  fences,  walks,  roads,  of  steam-cars,  news- 
papers, telegraph-poles,  and  books,  of  innumerable  other  embodied 
human  thoughts,  which  take  the  place  in  his  life  that  in  the  life 
of  the  savage's  infant  is  occupied  by  the  natural  wilds  of  forest 
and  plain,  mountain  and  river.  Churches  and  other  institutions 
convey  early  to  one  mind  a  sense  of  the  past ;  family  records  and 
histories  of  nations  create  him  a  miniature  citizen  long  before  the 
age  of  maturity;  religious  instruction  makes  a  priest  of  him  with 
eyes  toward  the  future  while  still  at  his  mother's  knees;  geo- 
graphies make  of  him  a  cosmopolitan  before  he  travels  beyond  his 
own  village :  to  the  other  mind  all  these  monuments  and  encour- 
agements to  reflection  are  present  only  in  a  degree  so  low  as  to 
appear  abortive  by  comparison ;  while  the  wilds  and  dangers,  the 
great,  sheer,  physical  struggle  with  beast  and  tempest,  the  con- 
tinual search,  nomad-wise,  for  food  and  shelter,  dominate  his 


I 


WONDER  IN  PEIMITIVE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.       107 

wandering,  precarious  initiation  into  life.^''  But  the  beginnings 
of  religion  and  history  and  government,  of  church,  college,  and 
state,  are  there, — in  the  tools  and  shelters  of  the  stone-age,  in  the 
initiation  ceremonies  of  the  Australians,  in  their  complex  tribal 
and  inter-tribal  relationships,  in  their  tales  and  mythologies. 
The  contrast  is  tremendous;  but  there  is  something  to  contrast. 
Finally,  corresponding  to  those  rude  beginnings,  there  is  a  rough 
mental  classification  of  phenomena ;  and  thus  there  is  present  the 
machinery  for  a  reflection  as  crude  mentally  as  the  horde,  or 
wigwam,  or  celt,  is  crude  economically.  Calculated  only  for  daily 
needs  are  the  implements  of  savage  life ;  and  corresponding  only 
to  daily  activities  is  the  reflection  evidenced  by  peoples  of  the 
stone-age  in  culture.  Spencer  and  Gillen  say  of  the  Central  Aus- 
tralians :  ' '  their  mental  powers  are  simply  developed  along  the 
lines  which  are  of  service  to  them  in  their  daily  life. '  '^*  For  per- 
forming their  sacred  ceremonies  they  can  give  no  clear  reason : 
"the  natives  have  no  very  definite  idea  in  regard  to  this,  merely 
saying  that  it  pleases  the  Wollunqua  when  they  are  performed 
and  displeases  him  when  they  are  not, '  '^^ 

A  reflection  as  crude  as  this  can  hardly  give  rise  to  a  rational, 
deliberative  curiosity ;  and,  indeed,  upon  turning  to  the  testimonies 
of  early  travels,  it  is  found  that  the  curiosity  evinced  by  the 
aborigines  is  uniformly  lacking  in  the  reflective  quality.  The 
experience  of  rarities  and  novelties  is  provocative  of  astonish- 
ment, or  of  the  mere  sensuous  exploration  of  the  novel  object,  as 
mentioned  above.  Cook  tells  of  the  surprise  with  which  a  New 
Zealand  chief  viewed  the  European's  vessel,  and  of  how  impos- 
sible it  was  to  fix  his  attention  upon  any  object  for  a  single 
moment ;  of  the  astonishment  of  the  Matavians  at  seeing  men  on 
horseback ;  of  the  more  than  usual  astonishment  of  the  Sandwich 
Islanders  upon  coming  aboard.^"  But  the  astonishment  seems  to 
have  worn  away  without  any  access  of  reflection.  Fifty  years 
later  Wilkes  found  among  the  same  peoples,  who  had  in  the 


'•i^Cf.  Letourneau,  La  Psychologie  Ethniqiie,  Paris  1901,  p.  79. 

34  Spencer  and  Gillen,  Northern  Tribes  of  Central  Australia,  p.  30;  cf., 
by  same  authors,  Native  Tribes  of  Central  Australia,  p.  46  ff. 

35  Spencer  and  Gillen,  Northern  Tribes,  etc.,  p.  227. 

36  Kippis,  A.,  Narrative  of  the  Voyages  Performed  by  Capt.  Cool-,  New 
York   1858,  pp.   173,  320,  337, 


108  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEVELLOUS. 

meantime  come  under  the  tutelage  of  the  missionaries,  a  curiosity 
equally  idle  and  in  hardly  any  greater  degree  passing  beyond  the 
stupid  stare  of  astonishment."  Of  the  equally  simple  inquisitive- 
ness  of  the  Dyaks  a  good  illustration  may  be  found  in  H.  Ling 
Roth's  account  of  the  natives  of  Sarawak  and  Borneo.''®  At  other 
times  there  appears  a  complete  absence  of  curiosity  of  any  kind  ;^^ 
so  that  the  curious  state  of  mind  seems  not  only  as  idle  and 
empty  of  reflection,  but  also  as  capricious,  as  with  children. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  presence  of  teleological  myths  is 
usually  taken  as  an  indication  of  a  reflective  curiosity  working 
upon  its  environment ;  and  Dr.  Lang  bases  his  whole  account  of 
mythology  upon  the  assumption  of  an  early  curiousness  about  the 
world.  Tylor  speaks  of  the  savage's  intellectual  appetite  and 
craving  for  reasons  'why. '^°  But  readiness  to  ask  questions  does 
not  mean  a  reflective  and  discriminating  curiosity,  even  Avhen  the 
questions  are  about  the  origin  and  nature  of  the  individual's 
environment.  The  savage's  curiosity,  like  that  of  the  child,  is 
satisfied  with  the  first  answer  that  comes  to  hand,  as  Dr.  Lang 
is  at  pains  to  point  out;*^  and  that  answ^er  is  the  answer  of 
imagination.  Here,  indeed,  a  fact  most  important  to  the  under- 
standing of  the  primitive  mind  and  its  products  becomes  evident. 
When  such  a  mind  confronts  a  question  of  rarity,  its  reflection  is 
identical  with  its  imagination.  A  creative  activity  of  mind,  rather 
than  a  critical  examination,  is  what  constitutes  primitive  reflec- 
tion, and  makes  of  primitive  science  a  realm  of  fairy-stories  that 
contain  the  naive  and  facile  answering  of  the  questions  asked  by  a 
simple  curiosity.  Finally,  it  may  be  suggested  that  the  inherent 
delight  in  the  exercise  of  this  free  function  of  invention,  that  the 
universal  love  of  story-telling,  is  quite  as  much  at  the  basis  of 
mythology  as  that  tendency  to  ask  questions  about  everything 
which  is  so  often  mistaken  for  a  self-conscious  and  deliberative 
activity. 


37  Wilkes,  C,  U.  8.  Exploring  Expedition,  Philadelphia  1845,  II,  8,  111, 
127. 

88  H.  Ling  Roth,  The  Natives  of  Sarnicolc  and  North  Borneo,  London 
1896,  I,  68. 

39  Earl.  G.  W.,  Papuans,  London  18.53,  p.  46;  Kippis,  op.  cit.,  pp.  35,  82, 
95,  325;  Cf.  H.  Ling  Roth,  The  Aborigines  of  Tasmania,  Halifax  1899,  p.  42, 

40  Tylor,  op.  cit.,  I,  368,  369. 
■•1  Lang,  op.  cit.,  I,  51. 


WONDER  IN  PRIMITIVE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.       109 

Thus,  on  the  one  hand,  whatever  there  is  of  curiosity,  simple, 
idle,  capricious,  and  empty  of  nwy  appreciable  reflection  (except, 
of  course,  in  matters  connected  with  the  chase,  where  the  savage 's 
complete  experience  is  always  in  the  process  of  wearing  down  to 
ideas  and  reflection),  is  closely  bound  up  with  that  stupid  aston- 
ishment which,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  always  difficult  to  distinguish 
from  real  wonder,  and  which  is,  at  any  rate,  of  little  or  no 
importance  in  our  study,  save  as  a  frequent  associate  of  wonder. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  same  curiosity,  brought  to  bear  upon  the 
striking  effects  of  natural  environment,  passes  off  into  an  imagina- 
tive activity  which,  so  far  as  the  deliberation  and  bafflement 
of  reflection  that  make  for  wonder  are  concerned,  promises  no 
eventuation  in  that  emotion. 

Once  more,  then,  the  progress  to  wonder,  this  time  from 
curiosity,  is  retarded  by  the  absence  of  a  sophisticated  classifica- 
tion of  phenomena  under  a  conscious  conception  of  natural  law 
and  order.  But  if  a  reflection  rich  in  the  store  of  analysis  and 
synthesis  of  data  is  absent,  has  not  imagination,  it  may  be  asked, 
lent  another  opportunity  for  wonder,  aside  from  that  which  comes 
from  curiosity  working  upon  objective  material  ?  Has  not  a  new 
wonder  been  born,  even  a  marvel,  the  marvel  of  imagination 
working  upon  the  unrealities  of  the  mind's  eye  to  produce  that 
which  has  never  been  seen  on  land  or  sea? 

This  question  introduces  the  matter  of  belief.  Belief,  because, 
perhaps,  of  its  perduring  primitiveness,  shows  better  than  almost 
any  other  mental  trait  the  identity  of  processes  in  the  minds 
of  savage  and  citizen.  Dr.  Lang  has  assisted  in  exploding  a 
fallacy  long  connected  with  the  popular  opinion  of  primitive 
character.  To  Europeans,  he  remarks,  the  mind  of  the  savage 
and  credulity  have  appeared  almost  synonymous,  while  in  fact 
it  is  easy  to  show  that  incredulity  is  a  marked  characteristic  of 
savages.  Tales  of  Creation  and  the  Fall  brought  them  by  the 
missionaries  are  received  often  with  utter  disbelief,  as  preposter- 
ous, and  worthy  only  of  ridicule.**-  Everything  depends  upon 
the  authority  under  which  the  matter  for  credence  is  presented. 
Let  the  tradition  of  his  own  people  present  him  with  the  absurdest 


42  Lang,  op.  cit.,  I,  92-93. 


110  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

foolery,*^  or  let  those  accredited  with  authority  in  the  subject 
demand  his  confidence  in  wildest  vagaries,  and  the  implicit  assent 
of  the  savage  is  immediately  forthcoming.  He  is  then  the 
apotheosis  of  credulity.''*  On  the  other  hand,  the  \evy  narrowness 
and  irrationality  of  his  faith  under  familiar  authority  render 
him  equally  and  unreasonably  impervious  to  contrary  ideas  when 
presented  without  such  authority.  That  the  early  missionaries 
often  achieved  their  ends  is  no  proof  to  the  contrary ;  but  that  this 
furnishes,  rather,  a  case  in  point,  may  be  seen  if  time  is  taken  to 
reflect  that  the  authority  of  these  white  strangers  with  new  and 
terrible  magical  powers  of  slaying  and  traveling  was  indeed  so 
high  as  to  be  god-like.  The  only  wonder  is  that  they  ever  failed. 
Incredulity  must  have  been  unfortunately  only  too  strong  for 
many  an  early  devoted  soul.  The  whole  affair  is  in  every  way 
identical  with  the  mingling  of  bigotry  and  utter  credulity  which 
is  found  among  the  unlearned  to-day,  and  which  would  be  a 
paradox  were  it  not  so  clearly  an  inevitable  combination. 

In  belief  proper,  distinguished  from  unreflective  credulity 
by  its  interplay  with  doubt  and  conviction,  the  same  general 
principles  of  authority  tend  to  hold  so  long  as  the  individual 
mind  is  absorbed  in  the  communal.  Moreover,  progress  in  think- 
ing for  himself  is  provocative  of  hardly  any  other  assured  tend- 
ency in  the  savage,  because,  as  we  have  just  pointed  out,  reflec- 
tion and  imagination  in  the  savage  are  one  and  the  same.  Nor  is 
this  imagination  of  a  kind  to  widen  the  field  of  perceived  differ- 
ences, or  open  up  the  sense  of  various  possibilities.  It  is  not 
the  active  imagination  of  a  sophisticated  mind  indulging  in  con- 
structive discovery  and  analytical  invention,  but,  as  Vierkandt 
suggests,  the  principle  of  association  dominating  without  chal- 
lenge or  hindrance  the  affairs  of  a  narrow,  uncritical  conscious- 
ness. Presentation  in  thought  becomes  equivalent  to  external 
reality;  and  sequence  in  images,  whether  by  contiguity  or  simi- 
larity, is  absolutely  accepted  as  cause  and  effect.  Thus,  like 
influences  like;  and  antecedence  in  time  is  the  same  as  efficient 
cause.*"'    There  is  no  freedom  of  rare  similarities  and  impossible 


43  <  <  What  the  tribe  believes,  he  believes,  no  matter  what  his  senses  tell 
him. ' '     Brinton,  Religions  of  Primitive  Peoples,  p.   13. 

**  See,  e.g.,  Spencer  and  Gillen,  Northern  Tribes,  etc.,  p.  484,  note  1. 
■«5  For  example,  see  Frazer,  op.  cit.,  I,  pp.  9ff;  49  ff;  and  below,  p.  114. 


WONDEB  IN  PRIMITIVE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.       Ill 

contiguities,  such  as  constitute  the  imagination  of  a  modern  poet, 
but  an  even  and  sluggish  flow  of  habitual  associations  won 
directly  from  objective  experience.  What  Tylor  has  to  say  about 
the  similarity  of  a  savage's  fancy  to  that  of  a  raving  lunatic*^ 
applies  rather  to  the  error  of  the  imagination  and  absoluteness  of 
the  delusion  than  to  any  characteristic  of  high  and  sensitive 
plasticity ;  to  the  implicitness  of  belief,  in  a  word,  rather  than  to 
the  spontaneity  of  invention.  To  be  sure,  the  higher  races,  some 
branches  of  the  Polynesians  in  particular,*^  evince  an  astounding 
freedom  of  poetic  image;  but  the  lower  peoples  are  quite  as 
innocent  of  such  powers  as  they  are  unconscious  of  their  own 
lesser  faculties.*^  Imagination  is  not  imagination  to  them;  it  is 
fact.  "There  is  no  organized  experience  to  produce  hesitation. 
There  is  no  doubt  taking  the  shape — 'This  cannot  be,'  or — 'that 
is  impossible.'  Consequently,  a  fancy  once  having  got  posses- 
sion, retains  possession,  and  becomes  an  accepted  fact.  If  we 
always  carry  with  us  the  remembrance  of  this  attitude  of  mind, 
we  shall  see  how  apparently  reasonable  to  savages  are  explana- 
tions of  things  which  they  make."'*®  Or,  to  use  Tylor 's  words: 
"Beholding  the  reflexion  of  his  own  mind  like  a  child  looking  at 
itself  in  a  glass,  he  humbly  receives  the  teaching  of  his  second 
self."^" 


4c  Tylor,  op.  cit.,  I,  315. 

47  Cf.  Frazer,  op.  cit.,  I,  140. 

48  The  learned  show  more  than  usual  uniformity  of  testimony  in  this 
matter.  Jevons  {Introd.  to  the  Hist,  of  Selig.,  Lon.  1902,  p.  36)  refers 
to  the  singularly  sterile  imagination  of  the  savage.  Tylor  {op.  cit.,  II, 
108)  shows  that  spirits  are  personified  causes,  and  not  creatures  of  un- 
bridled fancy.  Tarde  (TJie  Laws  of  Imitation,  New  York  1903,  p.  95) 
speaks  of  "a  feeble,  wayward  imagination  scattered  here  and  there  in 
the  midst  of  a  vast  passive  imitativeness, "  and  quotes  Sumner  Maine's 
reference  to  Taylor  to  the  same  effect.  Grosse  (Beginnings  of  Art,  New 
York  1897,  p.  158)  says:  "Some  historians  of  culture  have  ascribed  to  prim- 
itive man  an  excess  of  fancy.  If  he  really  possesses  anything  of  the  kind, 
it  is  doubly  remarkable  that  he  never  exhibits  even  a  trace  of  it  in  the 
productions  of  his  representative  art."  Spencer  {op.  cit.,  I,  §§39,  47,  and 
I,  App.  B.,  §  11)  claims  that  primitive  imagination  is  rominiseont,  not  con- 
structive. Hirn  {Origins  of  Art,  Lon.  1900,  pp.  168,  297)  would  do  away 
with  the  ' '  idea  of  a  rich  and  creative  imagination  in  primitive  man, ' '  and 
notices  instead  his  deficient  powers  of  observ^ation. 

49  Spencer,  op.  cit.,  I,  App.  A. 

50  Tylor,  op.  cit.,  II,  49.  The  savage's  implicit  trust  in  his  own  imaginings 
is  well  illustrated  by  that  habit  of  mind  in  a  child  which  is  called  "make- 
believe."  It  is  easy  to  remember  how  real  those  fancies  were  in  our 
own  childhood;  how  the  mind  "saw"  the  things  happen,  while  external 
reality  was  totally  forgotten.     The  savage  has  comparatively  little  of  that 


112  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

For  belief,  then,  whether  iu  liis  own  iniajjcinings  or  in  new 
presentations,  everything  depends  upon  the  mental  complexity  of 
the  individual, — the  number  of  categories  of  experience  that  the 
subject  for  credence  must  satisfy.  The  less  the  number  of  such 
categories,  the  greater  the  rigidity  of  belief.  That  there  is  a 
mental  complexity  in  the  individuals  we  are  dealing  with,  has 
already  emphatically  been  stated.  In  view  of  that  development, 
there  cannot  be  on  the  part  of  the  savage  a  mere  blind  acceptance 
of  whatever  is  presented  to  his  consciousness,  of  anything  and 
everything  claiming  his  attention.  Far  from  that ;  and  yet,  when 
w'e  speak  comparatively,  his  intellectual  capacity  is  after  all  a 
very  small  matter;  and  as  such  it  gives  evidence  of  itself  in  a 
rigidity  of  belief  that  is  far  from  a  negligible  quantity  in  the 
present  research.  On  the  contrary,  this  rigidity  is  of  extreme 
importance,  as  may  be  seen  upon  realizing  its  force  and  extent  in 
actual  primitive  life.  So  implicit  among  the  aborigines  of  Vic- 
toria is  the  belief  in  the  powers  of  magical  incantation  that ' '  men 
and  women,  who  learned  that  it  had  been  directed  against  them, 
have  been  known  to  pine  away  and  die  of  fright. '"^^  In  New 
Zealand  the  belief  in  the  fatal  power  of  tapu  is  so  great  as  to 
kill  by  mere  suggestion  the  unlucky  savage  who  incurs  its  malig- 
nity f-  and  similar  eases  are  easily  found  in  all  parts  of  the  world, 
— among  the  peasants  in  civilized  countries  as  wxll  as  among  the 
savages  of  the  archipelagoes.  Spencer  and  Gillen  cite  the  case 
of  a  Kaitish  man  who  believed  that  some  of  the  evil  magic  of  a 
pointing-stick  had  gone  into  his  head.  ''The  natives,"  they 
write,  "are  people  of  the  most  wonderful  imagination,  and  we 
thought  at  first  it  was  going  to  affect  him  seriously ;  however  we 
assured  him  that  our  medicine  chest  contained  magic  powerful 


extornal  reality  to  forget:  his  "  mako-bolieve"  endures,  and  there  is  no 
80j)hiHticate(l  parent  to  point  out  his  mistakes.  Spencer  and  GiUen  {North- 
ern Tribes,  etc.,  p.  252)  give  a  good  example  of  this  in  the  case  of  the 
roots  of  trees  which  have  forced  their  way  down  through  the  rock  into 
the  water  beneath,  and  which  the  natives  believe  to  be  the  whiskers  of 
the  Wollunqua   snake   who   resides  in  the   pool. 

SI  Frazer,  op.  cit.,  I,  13. — Quotes  from  E.  M.  Curr,  The  Australian  liacc, 
III,  547. 

^2  Ibid.,  I,  321. — Quoted  from  Old  New  Zealand,  by  a  Pakeha  Maori, 
Lon.  1884,  p.  96.  See  further  in  Frazer  for  other  cases — also  p.  60  for 
the  same  thing  among  European  peasants.  Cf.  also  E.  Crawley,  The  Mystic 
Ease,  Lon.  1902.  p.  67;  A.  W.  Hovvitt,  Native  Tribes  of  South-East  Aus- 
tralia, Lon.   1904,  pp.  373,  446. 


WONDER  IN  PEIMITIFE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.       113 

enough  to  counteract  the  effect  of  all  the  atnilingas  in  the  tribe, 
and  gradually  he  recovered  his  equanimity.  "^^  But  the  term 
imagination  is  here  utterly  misleading,  and  furnishes  a  good 
example  of  the  looseness  with  which  psychological  terms  are 
applied  by  even  ethnological  specialists.  Eigidity  of  belief, 
rather  than  any  liveliness  of  imagination  proper,  was  the  mental 
trait  liable  to  produce  an  unfortunate  outcome;  and  so  under- 
stood the  case  is  nothing  but  another  example  of  the  force  and 
extent  of  the  stereotyped  aspect  of  narrowly  circumscribed 
consciousnesss. 

This  belief  even  unto  death,  as  it  might  be  called,  due  as  it 
is  to  the  absence  of  "many  ways  of  conceiving  things,"  and 
implying  a  corresponding  density  toward  other  ways  of  apprecia- 
tion— possessing,  in  a  word,  both  the  positive  and  the  negative 
characteristics  of  bigotry — is  the  adequate  compliment  of  the 
perfect  credulity  under  authority,  and  the  equally  perfect  in- 
credulity without  authority,  which  were  noticed  above.  And 
when  to  this  belief  and  credulity,  which  approximate  each  other 
so  closely  that  they  seem  hardly  differentiated,  there  are  added 
the  other  conditions  of  simplicity  and  paucity  of  imagination, 
and  belief  in  that  meagre  imagination,  such  as  it  is,  it  is  at  once 
apparent  that  between  mental  sluggishness  and  stereotyped 
bigotry  of  conception  there  is  small  chance  for  wonder.  These 
are  indeed  tendencies  that  point  directly  away  from,  rather 
than  toward,  that  mental  plasticity  and  sense  of  rarity  that  were 
found  in  the  previous  chapter  to  be  the  sme  qua  non  of  any 
wonder  beyond  mere  stupid  astonishment.  There  is  no  creation 
of  a  new  wonder  by  feats  of  imagination,  as  seemed  possible  for 
a  moment;  there  is  the  throttling  of  wonder  by  the  readiness  of 
credulity  and  the  rigidity  of  belief;  incredulity  is  so  absolute  as 
to  eventuate  in  the  sense  of  the  ridiculous,  not  of  wonder ;  there 
is  little  or  nothing  of  the  ebb  and  flow  of  doubt  and  speculation, 
which  form  the  shifting  outlines  of  the  belief  that,  consonant  with 
wonder,  stops  short  of  annihilating  it  with  too  absolute  a 
credence.^*  The  lower  in  the  human  scale  the  search  is  carried, 
the  stronger  become  these  inimical  conditions  and  the  further 


C3  Spencer   and   Gillon,   Nortliern    Tribes,   etc.,   pp.   462-463.      Cf.    Stoll, 
Suggestion  und  Hypnotismus,  etc.,  Leipzig  1904,  p.  121. 
c-i  Cf.  above,  p.  80. 


114  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEVELLOVS. 

away  we  move  from  marvelling.  Unless  some  other  tendency- 
appear  to  contravene  these,  there  is  as  small  chance  for  wonder 
from  the  side  of  belief  and  imagination  as  from  the  side  of 
curiosity. 

A  word  about  Magic.  A  few  paragraphs  above,  mention  was 
made  of  the  dominant  powers  of  association  in  a  narrow  con- 
sciousness,— of  how  appearance  in  thought  becomes  equivalent  to 
external  reality.^^  It  is  the  body  of  logical  error,  occasioned  by 
this  natural  confusion  of  the  subjective  and  the  objective,  and 
rendered  concretely  obvious  in  certain  peculiar  practices,  that 
is  meant  by  the  term  magic  in  this  place.  The  regarding  of 
antecedence  and  consequence  in  time  as  the  same  thing  as  cause 
and  effect ;  the  assumption,  unconsciously  the  result  of  mental 
association  by  similarity,  that  like  effects  like, — that,  in  a  word, 
"causal  connection  in  thought  is  equivalent  to  causative  connec- 
tion in  fact" : — art  magic,  as  Dr.  Lang  observes,  is  simply  putting 
these  erroneous  principles  into  action.^**  Or,  to  quote  Dr.  Frazer, 
"A  mistaken  association  of  similar  ideas  produces  imitative  or 
mimetic  magic;  a  mistaken  association  of  contiguous  ideas  pro- 
duces sjTnpathetic  magic  in  the  narrower  sense  of  the  word.  "^^ 
Thus,  to  give  an  example  of  the  mimetic  kind,  the  Bushmen  light 
fires  when  they  desire  rain,  with  the  idea  that  the  black  smoke 
clouds  will  attract  black  rain  clouds.  The  Talus  sacrifice  black 
cattle  for  the  same  purpose.^*  Of  sympathetic  magic  the  readiest 
example  is  the  superstition  that  ill  may  be  worked  to  an  individual 
by  torturing  either  any  refuse  of  his  body,  such  as  hair,  skin  or 
finger-nails,  or  anything  that  has  been  contiguous  to  his  body, 
such  as  his  coat  or  other  part  of  his  dress.'^^  It  is  this  sort  of 
magic,  magic  in  its  simplest  terms,  that  is  considered  here  in  its 
possible  relation  to  wonder. 

In  the  first  place,  and  briefly,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  magic  can 
occupy  no  place  of  rarity  in  early  consciousness,  both  because  of 


Bs  See  above,  p.  110. 
50  Lang,  op.  cit.,  I,  96. 

57  Frazer,  op.  cit.,  I,  62. 

58  Lang,  op.  cit.,  I,  99. 

58  For  further  examples,  see  Frazer  as  indicated  above,  note  45 ;  or  Jcvons, 
op.  cit..  Chap.  IV. 


WONDER  IN  PEIMITIFE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.       115 

the  universality  of  its  fundamental  causes,  which  are  found 
wherever  there  is  mental  association  by  similarity  and  contiguity, 
— and  also  because  of  its  constant  appearance  in  objective  form 
and  practice  among  all  the  individuals  of  primitive  tribes  or  com- 
munities.^°  To  us,  indeed,  the  magical  powers  commonly  arrogated 
to  himself  by  each  member  of  a  tribe  appear  superhuman  and 
ridiculous;  but  to  the  savage  himself  they  are  as  much  matters 
of  fact  as  his  physical  powers, — as  his  other  physical  powers,  to 
express  what  would  be  his  own  statement  if  he  were  capable  of 
the  abstraction.  Instead  of  being  the  exercise  of  a  rare  and  special 
prerogative  of  influencing  the  supernatural,  or  at  least  the  super- 
human, the  practice  of  magic  is  in  his  consciousness  the  mere 
exertion  of  the  perfectly  well-known  and  common  methods  of  his 
science.  ' '  His  sympathetic  magic  is  but  one  branch  of  his  science, 
and  is  not  different  in  kind  from  the  rest";  magic  is  not 
"magical"  to  the  savage.*'^  There  needs  neither  more  words  nor 
further  proof  immediately  to  lift  the  matter  of  simple  magic  from 
the  demesne  of  wonder. 

Can  the  same  be  shown  of  what  Dr.  Tylor  calls  ''Animism"? 
Can  the  spirits  spoken  of  by  Vierkandt  as  beings  "whose  actions 
cannot  be  predicted  by  calculation  and  whose  motives  are 
whimsical,"  be  shown  to  be  equally  unproductive  of  marvelling? 

It  is  impossible  to  approach  this  subject  without  defining 
what  is  meant  by  animism;  for  there  has  been  a  confusion  of 
application  that  lays  the  content  of  the  word  open  to  question. 
Animism,  as  Dr.  Lang  remarks,  is  "  (1)  a  sort  of  instinctive  or 
unreasoned  belief  in  universal  animation,  which  Mr.  Spencer  calls 
'Animism'  and  does  not  believe  in;  (2)  the  reasoned  belief  in 
separable  and  surviving  souls  of  men  (and  in  things),  which  Mr. 
Spencer  believes  in  [and  calls  the  Ghost-theory]  and  i\Ir.  Tylor 
calls  'Animism.'  ""-  The  former  sort,  based  as  it  is  upon  a  sup- 
posed lack  of  differentiation  of  the  animate  and  inanimate,  is 


CO  See  Frazer,  op.  cit.,  I,  129,  et  passim;  also  I,  66,  72;  cf.  Brinton,  op. 
cit.,  p.  56;  Crawley,  op.  cit.,  pp.  31,  86;  Lang,  Making  of  Eclig.,  p.  49; 
Journ.  Am.  Folk-Lorc,  XVIII,  327;  Lang,  Myth.  Bit.  and  Belig.,  I,  85; 
Spencer  and  Gillen,  Native  Tribes  of  Central  Australia,  p.  456. 

ci  Jevous,  op.  cit.,  pp.  27,  35.     Cf.  Brinton,  op.  cit.,  p.  13. 

02  A.  Lang,  The  Making  of  Eelig.,  2d  ed.,  London  1900,  p.  53. 


116  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEVELLOVS. 

pretty  thoroughly  discredited  by  the  observations,  put  forward 
by  Van  Ende  and  others,  that  even  the  lower  animals  make  such 
a  distinction."^  The  second  sort,  as  defined  b}^  Dr.  Tylor,  is  of  a 
double  nature,  involving  both  spirits  and  gods.  "It  is  habitually 
found,"  he  says,  "that  the  theory  of  Animism  divides  into  two 
great  dogmas,  forming  parts  of  one  consistent  doctrine;  first, 
concerning  souls  of  individual  creatures,  capable  of  continued 
existence  after  the  death  or  destruction  of  the  body;  second, 
concerning  other  spirits,  upward  to  the  rank  of  powerful 
deities."®*  Whether  these  two  dogmas  should  be  taken  together 
in  the  sense  that  the  same  spiritual  conception  extends  throughout 
the  series  of  souls,  demons,  and  deities,  while  the  conception  of 
soul  is  the  original  one  of  the  series  f^  or  whether  they  should  be 
separated,  as  Dr.  Lang  maintains,  because  of  an  independent 
development  of  the  idea  of  deity,  are  questions  we  fortunately^  do 
not  have  to  decide  in  the  search  for  wonder.  Nor  is  it  necessary 
to  regard  the  origin  of  the  idea  of  spirits,  whether  it  arises 
from  metaphysical  sources  or  from  mistaken  interpretation  of 
dream,  vision,  hallucination,  shadow,  and  the  like.  For  us  the 
ideas  of  both  gods  and  souls  are  there — existent ;  and,  though  the 
origin  of  a  belief  may  sometimes  give  to  the  student  some  dubious 
hint  of  its  later  subjective  value,  usually  the  present  value  in 
popular  consciousness  of  a  belief  or  rite  is  quite  divorced  from 
any  appreciation  of  the  exact  nature  of  its  origin.  The  evolution 
of  religious  belief  is  always  marked  by  the  loss  to  memory  of  the 
earlier  and  cruder  stages.  Since  there  is  thus  no  call  to  join  the 
ranks  of  either  party  of  disputants,  it  cannot  be  interpreted  as 
giving  allegiance  or  countenance  to  the  one  or  the  other  if  here, 
for  the  sole  sake  of  clearness  in  argument,  the  soul-spirit-demon 
side  of  Animism  is  regarded  by  itself,  and  the  deity  side  post- 
poned to  another  place.  For  the  present  then,  only  the  former 
case  is  covered  when  the  word  Animism  is  used. 

The  extent,  according  to  primitive  belief,  of  the  world  of 
spirits  and  demons  is  practically  boundless,  as  Dr.  Frazer  and 
others  have  most  adequately  shown.     A  few  cases  taken  from 


<''•■>  U.  Van  Ende,  Histoire  Naturelle  de  la  Croyance,  Paris  1887. 
84  Tylor,  op.  cit.,  I,  426. 
^^•Ihid.,  IT,  109. 


WONDER  IN  PEIMITIVE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.       117 

the  Golden  Bough  will  serve  to  recall  emphatically  the  astonish- 
ing conditions.  "Thus  in  regard  to  the  aborigines  of  Australia 
we  are  told  that  'the  number  of  supernatural  beings,  feared  if 
not  loved,  that  they  acknowledge  is  exceedingly  great;  for  not 
only  are  the  heavens  peopled  with  such,  but  the  whole  face  of  the 
country  swarms  with  them;  every  thicket,  most  watering-places, 
and  all  rocky  places  abound  with  evil  spirits.  In  like  manner, 
every  natural  phenomenon  is  believed  to  be  the  work  of  demons, 
none  of  which  seem  of  a  benign  nature,  one  and  all  striving  to  do 
all  imaginable  mischief  to  the  poor  blackf ellow. '  'The  negro,' 
says  another  writer,  'is  wont  to  regard  the  whole  world  around 
him  as  peopled  with  invisible  beings,  to  whom  he  imputes  every 
misfortune  that  happens  to  him,  and  from  whose  harmful 
influence  he  seeks  to  protect  himself  by  all  kinds  of  magic  means. ' 
.  .  .  Speaking  of  the  spirits  which  the  Indians  of  Guiana 
attribute  to  all  objects  in  nature,  Mr.  E.  F.  im  Thurn  observes 
that  'the  whole  world  of  the  Indian  swarms  with  these  beings. 
If  by  a  mighty  mental  effort  we  could  for  a  moment  revert  to  a 
similar  mental  position,  we  should  find  ourselves  everywhere  sur- 
rounded by  a  host  of  possible  hurtful  beings,  so  many  in  number 
that  to  describe  them  as  innumerable  would  fall  ridiculously 
short  of  the  truth.  It  is  not  therefore  wonderful  that  the  Indian 
fears  to  move  beyond  the  light  of  his  camp-fire  after  dark.  .  .  . ; 
nor  is  it  wonderful  that  occasionally  the  air  around  the  settle- 
ment seems  to  the  Indian  to  grow  so  full  of  beings,  that  a  peaiman 
(sorcerer),  who  is  supposed  to  have  the  power  of  temporarily 
driving  them  away,  is  employed  to  effect  a  general  clearance  of 
these  beings,  if  only  for  a  time.'  .  .  .  The  Tahitians,  when 
they  were  visited  by  Captain  Cook,  believed  that  'sudden  deaths 
and  all  other  accidents  are  effected  by  the  immediate  action  of 
some  divinity  (sic).  If  a  man  only  stumble  against  a  stone  and 
hurt  his  toe,  they  impute  it  to  an  Eatooa;  so  that  they  may  be 
literally  said,  agreeably  to  their  system,  to  tread  enchanted 
ground.'  .  .  .  [Among  the  Maori  the  spirits]  'were  sup- 
posed to  be  so  numerous  as  to  surround  the  living  in  crowds  [like 
mosquitoes]  ever  watching  to  inflict  evil.'  ...  In  Bolang 
Mongondo,  a  district  of  Celebes,  'all  calamities,  great  and  small, 
of  whatever  kind  and  by  whatever  name  they  are  called,  that 


118  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABVELLOUS. 

befall  men  and  animals,  villages,  gardens,  and  so  forth,  are 
attributed  to  evil  or  angry  spirits.  The  superstition  is  in- 
describably great.  The  smallest  wound,  the  least  indisposition, 
the  most  trifling  adversity  in  the  field,  at  the  fishing,  on  a  journey 
or  what  not,  is  believed  by  the  natives  to  be  traceable  to  the  anger 
of  their  ancestors.'  .  .  .  The  Mantras,  an  aboriginal  race  of 
the  Malay  Peninsula,  'find  or  put  a  spirit  everywhere,  in  the  air 
they  breathe,  in  the  land  they  cultivate,  in  the  forests  they 
inhabit,  in  the  trees  they  cut  dowTi,  in  the  caves  of  the  rocks. 
According  to  them,  the  demon  is  the  cause  of  everything  that 
turns  out  ill.     .     .     .' "«« 

The  examples  can  be  multiplied  indefinitely.  In  this  populous 
realm  of  superstition,  what  is  the  status  of  wonder  and  the  won- 
derful ?  In  the  first  place,  it  will  be  seen  immediately  that  there 
are  certain  conditions  that,  according  to  our  descriptive  stand- 
ard, are  opposed  to  wonder.  There  is  no  rarity.  Spirits  are 
common,  and  extremely  intimate  in  their  intercourse  with  men. 
They  hardly  can  be  said  to  constitute  *  another  world, '  so  entirely 
is  their  activity  in  this.  They  are  as  common  as  the  diseases  and 
misfortunes  they  cause;  and  like  those  experiences  they  are 
calamities, — not  wonders.  As  personifications  of  disease  they 
enjoy  the  very  real,  and  equally  common,  characteristics  of  the 
diseases  themselves.  It  has  already  been  observed"^  that  rarities 
in  experience  lose  their  wonder  because  of  their  instantaneous 
explanation  by  reference  to  this  great  and  common  premise  of 
spiritual  influence :  the  further  observation  may  now  be  made 
that  their  very  commonness  tends  to  keep  the  spirits  themselves 
from  taking  on  the  air  of  the  wonderful.  Furthermore,  the 
materialistic  conception  of  spirits  tends  to  make  wonder  even 
more  remote.  Associated  with  them  is  nothing  of  the  modern 
idealistic  and  tenuous  character  of  a  supernatural,  transcendent, 
unembodied  power ;  instead,  either  they  are  so  vaguely  conceived 
as  to  be  hardly  liiore  than  '  influences,  '"*  or  else  no  distinction  is 
made  between  them  and  persons.  The  methods  adopted  to  expel 
spirits  conclusively  show  the  naive  materialism  of  the  savage. 


66  Prazer,  op.  vit.,  Ill,  41  ff. 

67  See  above,  p.  102. 

68  Cf.  Crawley,  op.  cit.,  p.   19. 


WONDER  IN  PEIMITIFE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.       119 

Screaming  and  beating  the  air  with  sticks,  pelting  with  stones, 
stalking  an  infected  village  and  clearing  it  of  demons  by  assault, 
pulling  the  evil  spirits  down  from  the  roof  by  ropes,  shutting 
gates  against  them,  scaring  away  fever-demons  by  terrific  noise 
and  war-like  preparations,  charging  them  with  squadrons  of 
elephants,*'^ — these,  and  many  other  physical  means  of  expulsion, 
can  point  to  nothing  else  than  a  belief  that  spirits  have  bodies 
and  functions,  powers  and  susceptibilities,  like  those  of  the  men 
whom  they  persecute.  If  any  further  proof  is  needed,  the  world- 
wide primitive  conception  of  soul  as  a  material  entity  can  be 
cited.^''  Again,  in  the  universal  fear  evinced  toward  these 
malignant  spirits  lies  another  condition  incompatible  with  won- 
der. Practically  all  the  cases  cited  by  Dr.  Frazer  insist  upon 
the  dread  with  which  the  savage  regards  the  cruel  propensities 
of  the  demon  hosts.  Personified  causes  of  misfortunes  as  they  are, 
they  are  hated  as  the  misfortunes  are  feared.  In  sickness  and 
pain,  fear  and  hatred  usurp  the  attention ;  and  when  the  respon- 
sibility for  suffering  can  be  placed  upon  concrete  shoulders,  no 
time  is  lost  in  wondering  at  the  matter.  Pain  demands  allevia- 
tion; the  offenders'  shoulders  must  be  chastised.  Nothing  of 
awe,  which  goes  with  wonder  as  we  have  seen,  but  everj^hing 
of  fear,  which,  as  we  have  also  seen,  preoccupies  the  mind,  is 
the  perpetual  and  harassing  attendant  of  these  primitive  spir- 
itualists. One  would  think  that  under  such  nervous  conditions 
corpulence  Avould  be  a  rarity  so  great  and  inexplicable  as  to 
be  marvellous!  Finally,  the  perfect  belief  in  all  these  spirits, 
the  absolute,  matter-of-fact  assumption  of  their  material  reality, 
the  air  of  what  might  proleptically  be  called  scientific  certitude, 
is  enough  in  itself  to  render  the  supposition  of  wonder  extremely 
precarious.  Such  a  belief  is  the  natural  accompaniment,  or  the 
meet  culmination,  of  a  superstition  that  is  singularly  sterile  in 
wonder-tendencies  in  spite  of  its  possession  of  many  apparent 
incentives  to  the  feeling  of  mystery :  but  spirits  are  the  most  usual 
of  primitive  visitors. 

There  may  be  noticed,  however,  in  the  second  place,  that 
even    among    these    spirit-swarms    there    are    certain    hints    of 


60  Frazer,  op.  cit.,  Ill,  60  ff. 

70  Vid.  ib.,  I,  248;  II,  57;  III,  351. 


120  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

strangeness,  which  are  bound  sooner  or  later  to  grow  into  con- 
ditions favoring  wonder.  The  prevailing,  though  by  no  means 
unexceptional,  invisibility  of  the  demon  is  as  rich  a  source  of 
wonder-development  as  can  be  wished.  In  dreams,  indeed,  all 
maj'  have  seen  demons ;  in  visions  the  wizards  are  supposed  to 
behold  them;  and  at  times  of  great  excitement,  when  a  whole 
village  is  in  frenzied  pursuit  of  the  plaguing  sprites,  many  act- 
ually believe  they  see  them  dodging  and  running  about.  But, 
for  the  most  part,  houses  are  beaten,  and  streets  charged,  with- 
out any  visible  meeting  with  the  dreaded  invaders.  When  belief, 
for  one  cause  or  another,  shall  grow  less  absolute,  this  invis- 
ibility will  become  a  distinguishing  mark,  and  the  cause  of  many 
premonitory  ghost-shivers.  Again,  the  power  of  the  unholy 
spirits,  though  so  man-like,  is  always  open  to  exaggeration, 
which,  in  turn,  will  tend  ultimately  to  a  more  and  more  refined 
intangibility.  Wliether  or  not  in  the  cases  indicated,  say  that 
of  the  Australians,  for  instance,  there  is  already  anything  of 
the  supernatural,  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  say,  because  of 
the  extremely  modern  and  sophisticated  connotation  of  the  word 
supernatural.  Certainly  nothing  of  the  supernatural  in  the 
sense  of  that  which  contravenes  systematized  categories  of  ex- 
perience :  but  it  is  absurd  to  deny  that  the  Australian  is  conscious 
of  the  supernatural  in  the  sense  of  a  power  greater  than  his  owti 
— the  sense  which  Principal  Jevons  supports  ;'^^  for  the  admission 
means  nothing  more  than  repeating  that  the  spiritual  powers  were 
not  'spiritual,'  but  material.  As  Crawley  puts  it,  "Primitive 
man  believes  in  the  supernatural,  but  supernatural  beings  and 
existences  are  to  him  really  material — the  supernatural  is  a 
part  of  and  obeys  the  laws  of  nature.  "^^ 

We  may  now  pause  to  summarize  the  results  already  obtained. 
All  the  premises  and  tendencies  of  primitive  thought  and  belief 
so  far  noticed,  with  the  possible  exception  of  the  one  ingredient 
of  invisibility  in  the  last  case,  lead  away  from  wonder  rather 
than  toward  it;  and  they  evince  a  general  disposition  on  the 
part  of  early  mental  and  religious  conditions  to  have  less  and 


"1  Jevons,  op.  cit.,  pp.   19,  23,  41. 
72  Crawley,  op.  cit.,  p.  62. 


WONDER  IN  PRIMITIVE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.       121 

less  to  do  with  wonder  the  more  primitive  they  are.  We  have 
now  practically  covered  the  field  indicated  by  the  picture 
drawn  by  Vierkandt.  In  one  way  or  another — by  the  discussion 
of  the  mental  and  emotional  cues  to  wonder,  surprise,  reflection, 
curiosity,  imagination,  credulity,  belief,  fear;  or  of  the  insti- 
tution, as  it  may  be  called,  of  magic ;  or  of  the  data  of  animism, 
so  far  as  we  have  undertaken  them — the  premises,  and  the  sub- 
jective and  objective  characteristics,  of  that  typical  picture  have 
been  mentioned  and  commented  upon. 

Is  the  task,  then,  ended?  Has  the  field  of  tendencies  been 
explored  sufficiently,  and  is  the  general  negative  conclusion  in 
the  matter  of  wonder  and  marvel  to  stand  as  it  now  is?  The 
task  cannot  be  so  simple.  Human  nature  is  not  so  amenable 
to  one-way  categories.  It  always  has  a  habit  of  disturbing  the 
best  laid  and  best  considered  of  such  rigid  cabinet-filings.  The 
student  too  often  sees  only  one  way  of  the  web,  and  forgets  the 
warp  in  the  woof.  It  is  proper,  therefore,  to  turn  again  to  the 
general  field  of  primitive  conditions  with  the  expectation  of 
finding  in  some  matters  not  mentioned  by  Vierkandt  the  pres- 
ence, or  at  least  the  seed,  of  contrary  tendencies  that  will  count 
toward  the  development  of  a  sense  of  wonder  even  in  very  early 
conditions.  Now  the  logic  of  the  case,  as  it  stands  revealed  by 
the  steps  already  taken,  indicates  that  what  is  necessary  for 
this  development  of  wonder  is  a  certain  specialization  and 
uniqueness  here  and  there  in  the  midst  of  common  and  universal 
conditions,  a  separating  and  secluding  tendency,  by  which  the 
individuality  that  belongs  to  rarity  may  grow  up  in  the  midst 
of  the  communal  character  and  characteristics  of  primitive  life. 
It  is  the  particular,  the  glaringly  personal,  the  discrete  fruit 
of  variety  apotheosized  in  exaggerated  specialties  and  close  cor- 
porations, that  is  needed  as  much  for  the  production  of  real 
wonder  as  for  the  economic  and  social  advance  of  the  horde  or 
clan.  And  it  is  in  the  hitherto  neglected  side  of  animism,  in 
its  aspect  or  dogma  of  separate,  overlording  deities — great,  par- 
ticular, and  individual  spirits,  far  removed  from  the  ordinary 
demon — that  the  first  of  such  specializing  tendencies  may  be 
noted. 

Upon  the  nature  of  the  gods,  however,  the  anthropologists 


122  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABVELLOUS. 

do  not  agree.  AVhile  the  older  anthropology  has  been  in  the 
habit  of  regarding  them  as  segregations  from  the  great  animistic 
company  of  ghosts  and  spirits,^^  Dr.  Lang  has  of  late  strongly, 
though  to  very  few  convincingly,  supported  the  theory  that 
'savage  supreme  beings',  such  as  the  Australian  Daramulun, 
originate  in  no  specialization  within  animistic  circles,  are  not 
spiritual  beings  at  all,  but  are  the  idealizations  of  the  savage 
himself,  as  conceived  by  himself.  Such  a  being  "was  not  origin- 
ally differentiated  as  'spirit'  or  'not  spirit'.  He  is  a  Being,  con- 
ceived of  without  the  question  of  'spirit'  or  'no  spirit'  being 
raised;  perhaps  he  was  originally  conceived  of  before  that 
question  could  be  raised  by  men.  When  we  call  the  Supreme 
Being  of  savages  a  'spirit'  we  introduce  our  own  animistic 
ideas  into  a  conception  where  it  may  not  have  originally  existed. 
If  the  god  is  'the  savage  himself  raised  to  the  n*^  power'  so 
much  the  less  of  a  spirit  is  he.  "^*  A  very  questionable  proof 
and  illustration  of  this  theory  is  the  case  of  Daramulun.  Mr. 
Howitt  writes  thus:  "This  supernatural  being,  by  whatever 
name  he  is  known,  is  represented  as  having  at  one  time  dwelt 
on  the  earth,  but  afterwards  to  have  ascended  to  a  land  beyond 
the  sky,  where  he  still  remains,  observing  mankind.  As  Dara- 
mulun, he  is  said  to  be  able  to  'go  anywhere  and  do  anything.' 
He  can  be  invisible;  but  when  he  makes  himself  visible,  it 
is  in  the  form  of  an  old  man  of  the  Australian  race.  He  is  evi- 
dently everlasting,  for  he  existed  from  the  beginning  of  all 
things,  and  he  still  lives.  But  in  being  so,  he  is  merely  in  the 
state  in  which,  these  aborigines  believe,  everyone  would  be  if 
not  prematurel}'  killed  by  evil  magic.  Combining  the  statements 
of  the  legends  and  the  teachings  of  the  ceremonies,  I  see,  as 
the  embodied  idea,  a  venerable  kindly  Headman  of  a  tribe, 
full  of  knowledge  and  tribal  \\nsdom,  and  all-powerful  in  magic, 
of  which  he  is  the  source,  with  virtues,  failings,  and  passions, 
such  as  the  aborigines  regard  them.  Such,  I  think,  they  picture 
the  All-Father  to  be,  and  it  is  most  difficult  for  one  of  us  to 
divest  himself  of  the  tendency  to  endow  such  a  supernatural 


"3  See,  e.g.,  Jevons,  op.  cit.,  p.  17.5;  Im  Thurn,  in  Journ.  Anthrop.  Instit., 
XI,  374;   and   Tylor,  as  quoted  above,  note  G4. 

T*  Lang,  Making  of  Belig.,  p.  187. 


WONDER  IN  PEIMITIFE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.       123 

being  with  a  nature  quasi-diyine,  if  not  altogether  so — divine 
nature  and  character.  "^^  Later  on,  indeed,  with  the  popular- 
ization of  ghost  and  spirit  worship,  such  a  Being  as  this  All- 
Father  would  by  analogy  come  to  be  regarded  as  a  spirit  and 
be  placed  side  by  side  with  other  "non-original  gods  that  were 
once  ghosts."'*^ 

The  best  thing  to  be  done,  in  view  of  the  present  state  of 
the  question,  is  to  speak  of  the  following  kinds  of  gods :  original 
gods  who  are  Supreme  Fathers  and  non-animistic ;  gods  who 
were  originally  ghosts  or  other  spirits,  and  are  not  Supreme 
Fathers,  and  who  appear  in  great  number  as  local  deities,  or 
as  tutelary  deities  of  sections  of  the  community,  or  as  tutelary 
deities  of  individuals;^^  lastly,  original  gods  who  became  anim- 
istic by  analogy.  Now,  in  any  class  the  element  of  individuality 
or  specialization,  and  so  of  the  rarity  that  makes  for  wonder, 
is  distinctly  present.  Two  particular  cases,  however,  should  be 
noted.  In  the  first  place,  in  whatever  way  the  god  arises,  he 
is  universally  distinguished  from  the  animistic  crowd  by  his 
benign  intentions  toward  men  and  even  helpful  offices  in  their 
behalf.  Such  goodness,  though,  does  not  produce  intimacy  in 
the  popular  breast  to  anywhere  near  the  degree  that  intimacy 
is  precipitated  by  the  malignity  of  the  demons.  The  good  god 
means,  to  the  savage,  the  harmless  god,  whom  he  need  not  worry 
about  in  the  course  of  his  struggles  against  the  torments  of  the 
fiends.'^  The  air  of  remoteness  which  is  thus  attendant  upon 
the  segregation  of  the  god,  and  which  is  rather  fostered  than 
otherwise  by  the  esoteric  teachings  of  the  initiation  ceremonies 
described  by  Howitt,  and  Spencer  and  Gillen,  will  possess  a 
double  tendency, — toward  both  awe  and  neglect.  The  sense  of 
wonder  lags  under  such  conditions.  Inasmuch  as  they  are  not 
continually  present  to  the  popular  consciousness,  there  is,  in- 
deed, a  rarity  about  the  great  gods;  but  so  great  is  the  remote- 
ness that  makes  the  rarity  that  the  wonder  becomes  more  and 


75  A.  W.  Howitt,  Native  Tribes  of  South-East  Australia,  London  1904, 
pp.  500-501, 

7e  Lang,  Making  of  Belig.,  pp.  189,  190. 

77  Cf.  Jevons,  op.  cit.,  p.  163. 

78  In  some  cases  the  neglect  may  be  due  to  other  causes.     See  Jevons, 
op.  cit.,  p.  181. 


124  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

more  a  thing  of  special  or  esoteric  resuscitation.  The  vividness 
of  wonder  is  proportioned  to  the  immediate  and  striking  contra- 
vention of  familiar  experiences,  to  the  interruption  of  the 
affairs  of  men  and  women  in  their  intimate  surroundings  and 
oflfiees.  By  the  unlearned  peasant,  as  well  as  by  the  ignorant 
savage,  the  wonder  of  Jack  the  Giant-Killer,  for  instance,  is 
felt  far  more  and  far  oftener  than  the  wonder  of  a  creation 
story.  But  peasant  and  savage  both  experience,  at  times  of 
religious  initiation  or  celebration,  the  wonder  of  the  ancient  and 
remote.  Thus  the  greater  gods  are  always  a  source  of  wonder 
to  the  human  breast;  but  a  source  that  is  often  quiescent,  and 
the  power  of  which  is  latent  until  revivified  by  special  con- 
ditions of  social  custom,  or  by  particular  circumstances  of 
individual  moment. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  original  Su- 
preme Father  of  Dr.  Lang's  argument  derives  no  wonder  from 
spiritual  sources  until  far  on  in  his  downward  career.  This  does 
not  mean  that  he  possesses  no  wonder  of  his  own.  The  awe  and 
reverence  with  which  he  is  regarded,  the  secret  nature  of  his 
rites,  and  the  mystery  of  his  revelation,'"  all  indicate  conditions 
eminentl}'  favorable  to,  if  not  the  actual  presence  of,  wonder. 
Indeed,  the  w^onder  attaching  to  him  is  in  all  probability  far 
greater  than  could  ever  be  derived  from  his  alliance  with  the 
commonplace  crowd  of  spirits  and  ghosts.  Dr.  Lang  himself 
claims  that  with  the  rise  of  ghost-worship  the  All-Father  becomes 
more  and  more  an  indifferent  and  little  regarded  power.^" 
Again,  the  powers  of  Daramulun,  Baiame,  and  the  like,  are  such 
as  indicate  a  wonderful  nature.  It  will  be  necessary  in  a 
few  moments  to  show  that  the  magicians  are  supposed  to  derive 
their  extraordinary  gifts  from  the  gods,  who  are  represented 
as  the  sole  source  of  all  such  gifts.  The  tale  of  the  other  powers 
of  the  gods,  equally  out  of  the  ordinary',  equally  unique  and 
limited  to  themselves,  may  be  found  in  the  passage  in  Howitt 
to  which  reference  has  already  been  made.®^  There  may  be  won- 
der without  spirits;  and  many  a  wonderful  tribal  hero  Or  head- 


7»  Howitt,  op.  cit.,  p.  489  ff. 

80  Lang,  Making  of  Eelig.,  pp.  XX,  190. 

81  See  above,  p.  123. 


WONDER  IN  PEIMITIVE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.       125 

man,  idealized  by  tradition  and  exaggerated  by  piety,  becomes 
a  spirit  only  with  the  rise  of  the  rival  spirits  in  popular  regard. 

The  segregation  of  the  god  is  paralleled,  and  undoubtedly 
also  increased,  by  the  segregation  of  his  special  mortal  servant, 
the  priest.  The  relation  of  priest  and  magician  in  primitive  life 
is  a  matter  of  dispute.  While,  on  the  one  hand,  it  is  undeniable 
that  in  many  races  individuals  are  found  who  combine  the  func- 
tions of  priest  and  sorcerer,  and  that  in  many  highly  developed 
priesthoods  of  civilized  nations  the  priest  retains  certain  powers 
undeniably  of  magical  origin,  it  is  equally  certain,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  the  notable  struggle  in  advanced  communities  between 
priest  and  sorcerer,  between  magic  and  religion,  is  duplicated 
among  the  lower  races  in  the  opposition  of  the  orthodox  med- 
icine-man to  the  shrewd,  crafty,  imtruthful,  and  unscrupulous 
charlatan,  who  holds  no  office  of  public  trust,  but  preys  upon 
the  simple  and  ignorant.  Francis  La  Flescher  has  eloquently 
insisted  on  this  opposition;  and  has  shown  clearly  how  the 
venality  of  the  charlatan,  and  his  readiness  to  perform  for  a 
consideration,  have  always  obscured  in  the  eyes  of  strangers 
the  real  religion  and  high  idealism  of  the  sacred  and  secretive 
office  of  the  priest.**-  Exactly  what  this  state  of  affairs  may 
mean — whether  the  priest  has  evolved  from  the  magician,  or 
the  two,  separate  and  distinguishable  in  the  beginning,  have 
in  the  course  of  later  development  mutually  borrowed  the  powers 
of  each  other,  while  still  maintaining  an  antagonism  of  offices — 
is  a  matter  that  must  be  left  to  the  specialists.  For  present 
purposes  the  best  must  be  made  of  a  bad  matter  by  regarding 
the  two  offices  separately. 

Aside  from  the  specialization  of  the  office,  which  in  itself 
is  a  strong  factor  of  rarity,  there  are  other  conditions — in  part, 
perhaps,  aspects  of  this  segregation — that  indubitably  produce  a 
tendency  toward  the  wonderful.  For  one  thing,  the  close  relation 
between  the  offices  of  king  and  priest,®^  so  often  amounting  to 
identity,  doth  hedge  them  mutually  with  a  supreme  dignity  and 


s^  Journal   of   American   Folh-Lore,    XVIII,   274;    cf.   Jevons,   p.    289; 
Lang,  Making  of  Belig.,  p.  183;   Frazer,  I,  64. 

ssPrazer,  op.  cit..  Index  under  "Kings  as  Gods";   Jevons,  p.  275  ff. 


126  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

awful  sanctity.  Again,  the  function  of  mediating  between  man 
and  god,  of  supplying  the  necessary  channel  of  supplication  and 
communication,  is  always  a  present  reminder  of  tlie  extraor- 
dinary powers  of  the  deity's  agent.  But  greater  than  either 
of  these  is  the  possession  by  the  priest  of  actually  divine  power, 
received  by  him  as  the  representative  and  chief  servitor  of  the 
god.  "Among  his  associates  he  is  looked  upon  as  set  apart 
from  other  men  by  the  divinitj^  which  chooses  him  for  its  agent, 
or  dwells  within  him.  In  the  Polynesian  Islands  this  is  forcibly 
expressed  in  the  terms  applied  to  the  native  priests,  pia  atua, 
'god  boxes',  receptacles  of  divinity;  and  amama,  'open  mouths', 
for  through  them  the  god  speaks,  not  their  own  selves."®* — The 
chief  evidence  of  this  power,  and  often  the  origin  of  the  claim 
to  the  priestly  office,  is  in  itself  one  of  the  most  fertile  sources 
of  wonder  to  be  met  with  in  primitive  life.  This  remarkable 
evidence,  distinguished  by  a  rarity  and  fearful  intensity  appro- 
priate to  its  character  as  a  propaedeutic  to  one  of  the  rarest 
of  offices,  is  that  body  of  phenomena  nowadays  studied  under 
the  various  heads  of  suggestion,  hypnotism,  mesmerism,  neuro- 
pathy, psychical  phantasms,  pneumatische  Erfahrungen,  and  the 
like.  The  uncritical  mind  and  narrow  consciousness  of  the  sav- 
age lay  him  open  to  such  experiences  in  a  degree  hardly  as  yet 
realized ;  and,  among  the  members  of  the  horde,  the  neurotic  who 
is  the  greatest  adept  in  trance,  nervous  convulsions,  hysteria, 
and  the  whole  range  of  that  sort  of  thing,  is  regarded  as  a  sacred 
and  inspired  character.  "These  inspired  seers  represent  the 
priesthood  of  every  primitive  religion.  They  cultivate  [mystic 
power]  and  preserve  it,  and  in  them  the  missionaries  of  higher 
faiths  have  ever  found  their  most  resolute  foes  and  successful 
opponents.  The  reason  is,  as  I  have  said,  that  the  sliaman  has 
himself  been  face  to  face  with  God,  has  heard  Ilis  voice,  and 
felt  His  presence.  His  faith  therefore  is  real,  and  cannot  be 
shaken  by  any  argument.  He  may  indeed,  and  he  generally 
does,  assist  his  public  performances  with  some  trickery,  some 
thaumaturgy;  but  that  this  is  merely  superadded  for  effect  is 
proved  by  the  general  custom  that  when  one  such  adept  is  ill 


84  Brinton,  op.  cit.,  p.  58;  cf.  Frazer,  I,  249. 


WONDER  IN  PRIMITIVE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.       127 

or  in  straits  he  will  solicit  the  aid  of  another."**^  Moreover,  it 
may  be  noted,  the  very  addition  of  such  thaumaturgy  indicates 
the  general  atmosphere  of  wonder  in  which  the  whole  per- 
formance is  witnessed.  Here,  at  least,  is  a  power  distinctly 
immediate  in  its  interruption  of  the  usual  courses  of  daily 
affairs,  whether  it  be  experienced  by  the  layman  or  by  the 
priest.  Indeed,  it  is  hard  to  conceive  of  a  stronger  stimulus 
to  wonder  than  these  strange  and  awful  experiences,  wrung 
from  within  our  own  selves,  or  particularly  evident  (in  their 
intense  disturbances  of  ordinary  vocations)  in  the  vivid  con- 
tortions of  the  adepts;  nor  would  it  be  altogether  fanciful  to 
attempt  philosophically  to  trace  all  wonder  back  to  these  mystic 
and  mysterious,  even  as  yet  only  partly  understood,  eruptions 
of  a  subliminal  life.  Short  even  of  a  speculative  attempt,  an 
actually  empirical  demonstration  of  such  an  origin  might  be  made 
with  the  aid  of  that  pile  of  evidence  which  has  been  gathered  for 
establishing  the  foundation  of  religion  in  such  experiences.  Of 
all  the  tendencies  for  wonder,  this  is  undoubtedly  the  greatest, 
if  it  be  not  the  common  source  of  all. 

The  magician,  also,  delves  in  these  mysterious  effects  of  an 
unknown,  misunderstood  mental  pathology.  Dr.  StoU,  in  his 
eminently  suggestive,  if  not  exhaustive  work.  Suggestion  und 
Hypnotismus  in  der  VolkerpsycJiologie  (2d  ed.,  Leipzig  1904), 
has  traced  the  evidence  through  many  races  and  ages.  Among 
the  Australians,  for  instance,  he  finds  the  Boyl-yas  are  endowed 
with  powers  in  which  the  possible  and  impossible  are  mixed 
without  critical  regard.  As  a  particular  indication  of  the  sug- 
gestion-nature of  the  activity  of  the  magicians,  he  cites  the 
manner  in  which  they  obtain  their  powers.^"  M.  Mauss,  in  an 
exhaustive  article,  L'Origine  des  pouvoirs  magiques  dans  les 
societes  Australiennes,^''  clearly  shows  this  suggestive  nature  of 
initiation.  The  prevailing  method  of  acquiring  the  art  is,  ac- 
cording to  this  writer,   revelation  by  the   dead,   by  spirits  or 


85  Brinton,  op.  cit.,  p.  58. 

soStoll,  op.  cit.,  pp.  113  ff.;   cf.  Crawley,  op.  cit.,  pp.  23,  24. 

8T  £cole  Pratique  des  Hautes  Etudes,  Sect.  Religieuses,  Paris  1904,  pp. 
14  ff. 


128  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

mythic  personages,  by  more  complex  forms. ®^  Mr.  Hewitt,  in 
the  seventh  chapter  of  the  work  already  cited,  gives  a  long  ac- 
count of  the  making  of  medicine-men;  suggestion  and  thauma- 
turgy  play  the  leading  roles.  Moreover,  the  powers  of  the  magi- 
cian are  equalled  by  the  weirdness  of  his  initiation.  ' '  The  power 
of  the  doctor  is  only  circumscribed  by  the  range  of  his  fancy. 
He  communes  witli  spirits,  takes  aerial  flights  at  pleasure,  kills 
or  cures,  is  invulnerable  and  invisible  at  will,  and  controls  the 
elements. "^^  Howitt  mentions  his  powers  as:  supernatural 
powers,  healing  and  causing  disease,  magical  practices,  rain- 
making,  clairvoyant  power,  spirit  mediumship,  special  forms  of 
magic,  and  the  possession  of  songs  of  enchantment.^**  Thus,  the 
magician,  as  well  as  the  priest,  is  the  recipient  and  agent  of 
powers  that  distinctly  lift  him  above  his  fellows  as  a  man  of 
wonder  and  worker  of  marvels. 

The  fact  of  social  separateness  is  here  also.  In  spite  of  the 
common  possession  by  the  members  of  his  tribe  of  neuropathic 
experiences,  the  shaman  is  universally  distinguished  by  actual 
differences  of  conduct  and  appearance,  as  well  as  by  the  exer- 
cise of  superior  powers.  Not  only  has  the  wizard,  for  instance, 
the  power  of  communicating  with  spirits  during  waking  hours, 
while  the  ordinary  mortal  can  meet  such  only  in  sleep,"^  but, 
as  M.  ]\Iauss  indicates,  "he  feels  himself  different  and  does  not 
lead  the  same  life,  as  much  from  the  necessity  of  imposing  upon 
others  as  because  he  imposes  upon  himself, — particularly  because 
he  fears  to  lose  the  extraordinarily  fugitive  qualities  acquired. 
He  becomes,  he  remains,  he  is  obliged  to  continue  'another.'  He 
has  in  part  a  'new  soul.'  He  is  a  being  whom  society  makes 
expand,  and  he  himself  must  develop  his  personality  until  some- 
times it  is  almost  confounded  with  that  of  the  'superior  be- 
ings.' "®^  The  strenuous  forms  of  initiation,  so  carefully 
guarded,  in  themselves  show  the  attitude  adopted  toward  the 
office  and  its  powers.    But  a  still  further  and  extremely  cogent 


88  See  Journ.   Am.  Folk-Lore,  XVIII,  327. 
8»  Frazer,  op.  cit.,  I,  73. 

00  Op.  cit.,  Ch.  VII. 

01  Lang,  Maling  of  Belig.,  p.  49. 

02  J.  A.  F.,  XVIII,  327. 


WONDER  IN  PEIMITirE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.       129 

factor  supports  the  argument  for  a  wonder-tendency  in  this 
place;  and  that  is  the  character  of  the  belief  in  the  powers  of 
the  magician.  There  is  here  just  that  room  for  slight  doubt  that 
is  the  best  growing-ground  for  wonder.  The  belief  of  the  savage 
in  magic  may  indeed,  on  the  one  hand,  be  said  to  be  implicit; 
but  there  are  nevertheless  certain  circumstances  that  undermine 
that  implicitness,  though  the  contrary  forces  may  seldom  or 
never  reach  the  expression  of  skepticism.  I  quote  from  Spencer 
and  Gillen.  ' '  Whilst  living  in  close  intercourse  with  the  natives, 
spending  the  days  and  nights  amongst  them  in  their  camps  while 
they  were  preparing  for  and  then  enacting  their  most  sacred 
ceremonies,  and  talking  to  them  day  after  day,  collectively  and 
individually,  we  were  constantly  impressed  with  the  idea,  as 
probably  many  others  have  been  before,  that  one  blackfellow 
will  often  tell  you  that  he  can  and  does  do  something  magical, 
whilst  all  the  time  he  is  perfectly  well  aware  that  he  cannot,  and 
yet  firmly  believes  that  some  other  man  can  really  do  it.  In  order 
that  his  fellows  may  not  be  considered  in  this  respect  as  superior 
to  himself  he  is  obliged  to  resort  to  what  is  really  a  fraud,  but 
in  course  of  time  he  may  even  come  to  lose  sight  of  the  fact 
that  it  is  fraud  which  he  is  practising  upon  himself  and  his  fel- 
lows. ""^  Is  there  a  more  common  or  fruitful  source  of  wonder 
than  this  disbelief  in  one's  own  powers  but  fearful  belief  in 
those  of  others  ?°*  Is  there  any  more  fecund  ground  of  supersti- 
tion to-day?  Is  not  this  state,  preeminently  human  in  its  sub- 
servience to  custom  and  pathetic  deceit,  the  half-conscious  but 
strenuously  unacknowledged  state  in  which  every  spiritualist 
and  mystic  finds  himself  to-day,  even  as  Paracelsus  and  Empedo- 
eles  found  themselves  centuries  ago?  Verily,  this  is  the  secret 
mark  of  the  wonder-lover  and  the  wonder-worker !  Nor  is 
there  need  of  further  words  to  clarify  the  wonder-tendency  of 
the  primitive  magician. 

When  magic  becomes  'magical,'  it  becomes  marvellous.  When 
one  is  inclined  to  believe,  against  his  better  knowledge,  that  the 
magician  or  witch  possesses  a  power  over  affairs  that  is  dis- 
tinctly' a  contravention  of  usual  fact,  i.e.,  natural  law,  the  wizard 


0^  Native  Tribes,  etc.,  p.  130. 

9*Cf.  Crawley,  op.  cit.,  p.  86;  Howitt,  op.  cit.,  pp.  411,  533. 


130  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEVELLOVS. 

is  elevated  to  the  higher  realm  of  marvel.  A  word  as  to  how 
this  step  is  taken.  The  case  is  briefly  presented  as  follows:  "A 
curious  instance  of  the  continued  influence  of  magic  over  reli- 
gions and  races  who  have  discarded  it  is  to  be  found  in  the 
belief  that  inferior  peoples  and  faiths  conquered  by  such  higher 
races  possess  greater  magical  powers.  *  *  *  Hence  resort  is 
made  to  members  of  the  inferior  race  by  their  superiors  when 
they  wish  diseases  cured  or  injuries  to  be  subtly  avenged.  In 
this  way  the  Dravidians  of  India,  the  rude  races  of  the  Malay 
Peninsula,  the  Finns  and  Laps,  the  negroes  of  the  West  Indies, 
are  regarded  respectively  by  Hindus,  ]\Iohammedan  Malays, 
Scandinavians,  and  Christian  whites  as  having  powerful  magic. 
So,  too,  the  ancient  Greeks  regarded  the  Thessalians,  and  medi- 
aeval Christians  the  pagans  of  the  north,  or  stole  in  secret  to 
the  ghettos  wiiere  the  despised  Jew  was  supposed  to  practise 
his  strong  magic. '  '^^  As  Jevons  sums  it  up  :  "  Hence  the  more 
civilised  race  find  themselves  face  to  face  with  this  extraordinary 
fact,  namely,  that  things  which  they  know  to  be  supernatural 
are  commonly  and  deliberately  brought  about  by  members  of 
the  other  race."®®  There  could  hardly  be  a  better  proof  of  the 
correctness  of  our  description  of  the  psychology  of  the  marvel- 
lous than  this  case  which  so  perfectly  fits  what  was  laid  down 
on  that  subject  in  the  previous  chapter.^' 

Finally,  there  is  still  another  factor,  which,  while  indicating 
a  general  perception  by  the  rude  mind  of  whatever  is  abnormal 
or  strange,  provides  for  the  particular  isolation  of  priest  and 
magician.  I  mean  taboo,  the  institution  of  the  "strongly 
marked."  Whatever  its  origin,  whether  in  fear,  or  holiness,  or 
the  merely  strange  and  abnormal,  or  what  not,"^  taboo  incor- 
porates the  specializing  tendency  of  the  mind  in  a  custom 
provocative  of  awe  and  reverence,  and  indicative  of  high 
authority.  As  such,  taboo  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  custom  in 
harmony    with    the    other    specializing    tendencies    that    count 


0''  MaccuUoch,  J.  A.,  Religion  (Temple  Primers),  London  1904,  p.  6fi. 
80  Jevons,  p.   37;    cf.  Gomme,   Ethnoloqy  in    Folklore,   New   York   1892, 
Chap.  III. 

07  See  above,  especially  pp.  75  flF. 

08  (;/■.  Jevons,  Chaps.  VI,  VII,  VIII;   Crawley,   op.  cit.,  vid.   Index. 


WONDER  IN  PRIMITIVE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.       131 

for  wonder,  and  as  particularly  supplementing  and  sanctitying, 
or  at  least  certifying,  them  by  a  common  and  social  reverence 
which  is  recognized  and  scrupulously  observed  by  every  member 
of  the  community.  Indeed,  if  there  were  more  space  at  our  dis- 
posal, it  might  be  shown  that  just  as  the  Dakotans  applied  the 
term  wakan  to  "ever>i;hing  extraordinary  or  immense,  out  of 
the  course  of  nature,  and  especially  to  everything  sacred  or 
divine,"'"'  so  the  custom  of  taboo,  universal  and  common  as  it  is, 
marks  by  its  associations  of  awe  and  reverence  the  germ  of  the 
recognition  of  that  which,  because  it  appears  to  transcend  nat- 
ural law,  carries  one  into  the  realms  of  marvelling.  As  the  spir- 
itual explanation  of  the  unusual  became  rarer,  and  reflection 
commoner,  taboo  must  have  become  more  and  more  the  pronun- 
ciamento  of  the  unknown  and  inexplicable.  In  its  application 
to  priest  and  magician,  at  any  rate,  may  be  seen  its  conscious 
employment  in  some  such  meaning,  still  further  isolating  the 
sanctity  and  wonder  it  certifies. 

All  the  specializing  tendencies  so  far  noticed  have  been  be- 
liefs incorporated  in  practices  or  individuals.  There  is  one 
other,  and  last,  and,  for  the  student  of  literature,  chief,  tendency 
that  makes  for  wonder  and  marvel  and  contravenes  the  negative 
results  of  our  contemplation  of  Vierkandt's  composite  of  prim- 
itive mind.  This,  also,  is  a  specializing  tendency;  but  of  quite 
another  kind.  For  it  is  subjective;  it  is  not  on  institution.  It 
partakes  also  of  a  certain  sort  of  generalization ;  for  it  has  the 
effect  of  raising  the  individual  into  a  typical  greatness  and 
universal  importance.  Indeed,  it  is  the  mental  factor  concerned 
in  the  elevation  of  gods  and  priests  and  magicians,  and  of  the 
neuropathic  experiences  of  taboo,  to  an  impressive  importance 
above  the  ordinary  and  commonplace.  These  are  all  children 
of  exaggeration.  Exaggeration  has  lifted  them  all  up  into  nota- 
bility; exaggeration  has  cro"\vned  priests,  and  endowed  magi- 
cians; has  magnified  the  gods,  and  intensified  fits  of  ecstasy, 
and  elaborated  the  realm  of  taboo.  It  has  been  the  more  or 
less  unconscious  creator  of  wonderful  beliefs  and  forms  and 
offices.     But  it  has  not  stopped  there :  it  has  found  expression 


00  Briuton,  op.  cit.,  p.  61. 


132  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

elsewhere.  Indeed  it  is  with  a  further  expression  of  the  habit 
of  exaggerating  that  we  come  at  hist  upon  the  dynamic  force 
of  wonder,  by  which,  as  into  an  entangling  web,  the  objects 
and  cases  of  wonder,  already  noted  as  customs  and  beliefs,  are 
woven.  Exaggeration  employs  this  further  expression  in  its 
common,  every-day  practice  of  talking  and  telling  and  recount- 
ing the  multitude  of  passing  experiences  and  past  experiences. 
And  into  the  tale  are  woven  the  wonder-stot-k  of  custom  and 
belief,  of  god  and  priest,  of  magician  and  the  "magical,"  of 
trance  and  wakan.  Tales  of  the  gods  themselves  are  rehearsed; 
the  magician  is  now  the  subject,  now  the  machinery  of  the 
recital.  The  seeing  of  the  dead  motives  the  wonder-tale ;  and 
exaggeration  makes  untruth  true.  Exaggeration  is  the  most 
primitive  form  of  imagination;  its  employment  is  the  first  evi- 
dence of  plasticity,  of  freedom  in  that  stiff  imaginative  faculty 
already  noticed.  As  such,  exaggeration  is  the  first  door  opening 
into  that  ideal  realm  of  the  marvellous  spoken  of  in  the  previous 
chapter;  and  thus,  too,  it  becomes  the  gateway  of  wonder  into 
literature.^""  All  the  tendencies,  all  the  cases  noted  so  far,  are 
but  the  colors  and  tones  present  to  the  hand  of  exaggeration  as 
it  spins  its  web  of  romance, — as  it  disports  freely  in  tale  and 
legend,  until  a  critical  age  regards  it  with  a  cold  and  disapprov- 
ing eye,  and  an  empirical  science  rings  the  first  knell  of  the 
imaginative  interpretation  of  life. 

We  shall  see  this  power  working  upon  the  memory  of  cele- 
brated gods,  priests,  and  magicians.  Howitt  says  of  one  of  his 
native  informants:  "The  man's  information  as  to  the  customs 
of  his  tribe,  and  especially  as  to  the  initiation  ceremonies,  I 
found  to  be  very  accurate,  but  it  was  when  he  began  to  speak 
of  the  magical  powers  of  the  old  men  of  the  past  generation 
that  I  found  his  coloring  to  be  too  brilliant,  and  more  especially 
as  regarded  his  tribal  father,  the  last  great  warrior-magician 
of  the  tribe.  In  his  exaggeration  of  the  exploits  of  this  man  one 
might  see  an  in.structive  example  of  how  very  soon  an  heroic 
halo  of  romance  begins  to  gather  around  the  memory  of  the 
illustrious  dead. '  '^"^    We  shall  see  the  same  power  working  upon 


1"'  Cf.  above.  Chap.  TI,  pp.  74,  S.^-SS,  91. 

i"!  Op.  cit.,  p.  3.57;  cf.  also  p.  444.     (The  italics  in  the  text  are  mine.) 


WONDER  IN  PRIMITIVE  MIND,  CUSTOM,  AND  BELIEF.       133 

mere  tales  of  adventure,  the  classic  example  being  perhaps  the 
wonder-tales  of  the  Polynesian  Omai  upon  his  return  from 
Europe  to  the  South  Seas.^^^  What  marvels  were  his  to  tell !  Of 
how  the  English  had  ships  as  big  as  his  native  island,  and  guns 
so  big  that  many  men  might  sit  inside  of  them!  Everything 
was  big,  very  big!  So  a  child's  imagination  begins  by  convert- 
ing magnificently  his  experiences  into  indescribable  'bigness'. 
Again,  we  shall  see  exaggeration  extended  by  analogy  from 
familiar  to  unfamiliar  fields,  until  all  the  world  of  internal  and 
external  experiences  is  conquered  by  the  advancing  power.  Then, 
indeed,  the  universe  will  be  subject  to  wonder :  and  the  dynasty 
of  the  marvellous  will  last  for  centuries.  Yet  further:  with 
the  wonders  of  exaggeration  fully  established,  we  shall  see  the 
beginning  of  the  failure  of  its  power,  and  of  the  decay  of  its 
throne,  through  the  gradual  assertion  of  those  very  mental  pro- 
cesses that  in  the  previous  chapter  were  described  as  inimical  to 
wonder.  Within  the  ideal  realm  of  story-telling,  rarities  will 
cease  to  be  rare  through  repetition;  marvels  will  be  destroyed 
by  an  advancing  sophistry;  unbelief  will  raise  the  ridiculous 
where  once  all  was  awe;  reason  will  succeed  imagination;  and 
a  new  day  and  power  will  be  born  from  the  old.  But  in  both 
days  the  mind  of  man  in  its  ebb  and  flow  of  wonder  will  remain 
the  same;  and  each  ebb  tide  will  give  way  to  a  new  flood  of 
marvel. 

The  preliminary  field  of  wonder  has  now  been  more  or  less 
adequately  covered.  The  dynamic  power  that  is  to  make  the 
literature  of  wonder  has  been  named;  the  tendencies  of  belief 
and  custom  assisting  that  power  have  been  indicated;  the  con- 
trary tendencies  have  been  unfolded  at  greater  length;  in  both 
sets,  the  actual  materials  present  to  the  exercise  of  the  dj-namic 
power  have  been  suggested :  thus  we  possess  an  indication  of  the 
directions  in  which  we  may  expect  to  find  the  practice  of  wonder. 
A  previous  chapter  has  supplied  us  with  a  description  of  the 
complex  mental  operations  of  wonder  and  marvel  and  their  allied 
states :  thus  we  possess  a  means  of  appraising  the  wonder- value 


1U2  Kippis,  Cook's  Voyages,  p.  301. 


134  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEVELLOUS. 

of  whatever  we  examine.  Impulse,  tendencies,  materials,  stand- 
ards of  judgment, — all  these  are  now  at  hand.  We  are  in  position 
to  go  forward  into  the  actual  fields  of  literary  beginnings  and 
search  for  wonder  and  marvel.  It  is  proposed  to  make  this 
application  in  one  of  the  lower  fields, — the  Australian ;  to  note 
there  the  special  conditions  under  which  the  general  processes 
are  at  work,  and  to  examine  these  processes  at  work  in  myth  and 
legend. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

WONDER    IN    CENTRAL    AUSTRALIAN    BELIEF    AND    STORY. 

Discussion  of  sources — General  cultural  conditions  of  Cen- 
tral Australians;  identity  among  tribes;  low  stage  of  culture 
— In  such  a  stage  the  forces  against  wonder  strongly  present 
— More  important  to  regard  the  forces  making  for  wonder — 
General  crowd  of  spirits  not  wonderful  to  natives — Particular 
spirits  and  wonder — No  gods — Other  particular  spirits — Magi- 
cian and  wonder;  segregation  and  initiation;  extraordinary 
powers;  deceit;  exaggeration — Totemie  traditions  and  legends 
— Heroic  and  aitiological  legends — Wonder  in  the  heroic — 
Combination  of  animal  and  human  characteristics — The  inmin- 
tera,  Churinga,  and  Wollunqua — Character  of  the  legends  as  a 
whole — The  beginning  of  wonder  in  literature — Summary:  the 
relation  between  the  beginnings  of  wonder  and  of  literature. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  previous  chapter  it  was  promised 
that  the  danger  of  unreliable  information  concerning  savage 
races  would  be  met  by  a  careful  selection  of  cases  from  the 
works  of  trained  ethnologists.  It  is  a  notable  and  encouraging 
piece  of  good  fortune  that  within  the  last  seven  years  there 
have  been  made  upon  the  culture  of  very  primitive  races  most 
careful  and  discriminating  researches.  The  natives  of  south- 
east, central,  and  north-central  Australia  have  been  described 
by  trained  observers  in  three  long  and  invaluable  works  which 
mark  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  histories  of  primitive  man. 
Of  these  three  English  books  that  of  A.  W.  Howitt^  should  be 
mentioned  first,  because,  although  in  its  present  form  it  bears 
the  imprint  of  a  date  later  than  one  of  the  other  two,  it  is 
nevertheless  the  final  edition  of  an  older  series  of  articles  long 
since  famous  under  the  names  of  their  authors,  Howitt  and 
Fison.  ■  The  other  two  books  have  been  received  with  an  en- 
thusiasm hardly  second  to  the  gratitude  all  ethnologists  owe 
to  Howitt  and  Fison.  Two  other  names  are  now  linked  as  col- 
laborators in  this  field;   Spencer  and  Gillen  have  become  as 


1  A.  W.  Howitt,  The  Native  Tribes  of  South-East  Australia,  London  190-4. 


136  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABVELLOUS. 

familiar  to  ethnological  footnotes  as  the  other  famous  pair.  In 
1899  appeared  their  tirst  publieation,  The  Native  Tribes  of  Cen- 
tral Australia;  and  five  years  later  the  companion  volume,  The 
Northern  Tribes  of  Central  Australia,  made  its  bulky  way  into 
immediate  favor.  It  is  from  these  works,  so  opportunely  at 
hand,  and  especially  from  the  one  last  named,  that  the  data 
for  the  present  discussion  of  wonder  and  marvel  in  Australian 
belief  and  story  are  selected.  So  exliaustive  are  the  works  that 
it  will  seldom  be  necessary  to  step  beyond  them  to  the  less  trust- 
worthy sources  of  earlier  and  untrained  observation. 

Before  undertaking  the  direct  examination  of  the  collected 
myths  and  legends  of  some  of  the  Australian  tribes,  it  will  be 
proper  to  enter  into  a  short  discussion  of  the  general  economic 
and  religious  conditions  of  the  individual  tribes  that  are  to 
fall  under  the  present  view.  Thus  may  be  avoided  that  unfor- 
tunate lack  of  definition  of  particular  cultural  strata  so  wisely 
deprecated  by  Professor  Dewey,^  and  so  thoroughly  destructive 
to  a  history  of  the  sequences  of  any  one  tendency  or  class  of 
phenomena.  In  the  shifting  phantasmagoria  of  tendencies  that 
make  now  toward,  now  away  from,  wonder  and  marvel,  there 
is  need  enough  for  whatever  aid  can  be  had  from  careful  strat- 
ification of  economic  conditions;  while  the  only  satisfactory 
method  of  correlating  what  may  appear  as  the  different  stages 
of  the  development  of  wonder,  from  the  naive  creations  of  the 
mind  of  the  savage  to  the  sophisticated  productions  of  the  Greek 
romancers,  lies  not  in  the  application  of  descriptive  adjectives 
to  each  step,  but  in  the  determination  of  the  association  of  each 
step  with  definite  cultural  epochs. 

In  their  second  book  Spencer  and  Gillen  describe  the  social 
organization,  the  customs,  and  beliefs  of  the  aborigines  resident 
in  north-central  Australia  between  the  Macdonnell  ranges,  in 
the  center  of  the  continent,  and  the  Gulf  of  Carpenteria.  Their 
former  book  had  described  the  Arunta  and  Urabunna,  lying  to 
the  south  of  the  Macdonnell  ranges.  The  chief  northern  tribes 
observed  were  the  Unmatjera,  Kaitish,  Warramunga,  and  Tjin- 
gilli.  In  their  progress  northward  the  authors  were  able  to  trace 
as  they  went  "a  gradual  change  amongst  the  tribes  in  regard  to 


2  For  reference,  see  above,  p.  97,  note  15. 


WONDER  IN  CENTRAL  AUSTRALIAN  BELIEF  AND  STORY.    137 

organization  and  beliefs,  and  at  the  same  time  to  demonstrate 
a  fundamental  agreement  in  regard  to  certain  important  mat- 
ters."^ One  notable  agreement  was  the  universal  belief  that 
"every  living  member  of  the  tribe  is  a  reincarnation  of  a  spirit 
ancestor."  "As  we  pass  northwards  we  find  the  Arunta  be- 
liefs and  customs  merging  into  those  of  the  Kaitish,  the  latter 
into  those  of  the  Warramunga,  Tjingilli,  and  Umbaia,  and  these 
again,  in  their  turn,  into  those  of  the  coastal  tribes,  the  Gnaji, 
Binbinga,  Anula,  and  Mara.  Not  only  is  this  so,  but  in  the  south 
we  find  the  beliefs  of  the  Urabunna  tribe  agreeing  fundament- 
ally with  those  of  the  Arunta.  We  are  thus  able  to  demonstrate 
the  fact  that  there  is  no  radical  difference,  so  far  as  important 
beliefs  and  customs  are  concerned,  between  tribes  which  count 
descent  in  the  male  line,  and  others  which  count  it  in  the  female 
line.  .  .  .  Taking  every  class  of  evidence  into  account,  it 
appears  to  us  to  be  very  difficult  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that 
the  central  tribes,  which,  for  long  ages,  have  been  shielded  by 
their  geographical  isolation  from  external  influences,  have  re- 
tained the  most  primitive  form  of  customs  and  beliefs.  It  is 
an  easy  matter  to  imagine  the  beliefs  of  the  more  northern 
tribes  resulting  as  a  modification  of  original  ones,  more  or  less 
similar  to  those  now  held  by  the  central  tribes,  but  the  reverse 
process  is  not  conceivable."*  In  the  introductory  chapter  that 
follows,  the  authors  remark  emphatically  upon  "the  identity 
or  close  agreement  of  the  tribes  in  regard  to  important  customs 
and  beliefs."  This  appears  true  in  spite  of  the  geographical 
and  linguistic  isolation  of  the  tribes,  which  may  have  been,  as 
the  authors  surmise,  the  result  of  climatic  changes.^ 

From  these  and  other  remarks  of  like  nature  throughout  the 
book,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  all  these  tribes  are  for  our  purposes 
in  practically  the  same  cultural  condition,  but  that  the  Arunta 
series  probably  offers  the  nearest  approach  to  that  older  culture 
from  which  they  must  all  have  descended.  Dr.  Frazer  has  main- 
tained that  the  Arunta  represent  the  savage  at  his  lowest  depth. 
Secluded  in  that  most  secluded  of  continents,  where  the  past 


3  N.  T.2  {=Northern  Tribes  of  Central  Australia),  xi. 

4N.  T.2,  xi. 

5  See  N.  T.2,  14,  for  summary  of  resemblances  and  diflferences. 


138  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABFELLOUS. 

seems  to  have  been  preserved  as  in  a  great  miiseiim,  where 
types  of  flora  and  fauna  long  since  extinct  in  all  other  parts 
of  the  world  are  only  now  becoming  extinct, — isolated  in  that 
strangely  backward  continent,  the  Ariinta  present  a  vast  con- 
trast, not  only  to  civilized  man,  but  even  to  many  savage  races. 
To  illustrate  that  contrast  Frazer  emphasizes  two  of  the  points 
brought  out  by  Spencer  and  Gillen.  It  appears  that  although 
these  Australians  suffer  much  from  the  cold,  it  has  never  oc- 
curred to  them  to  use  as  garments  the  pelts  of  the  wild  beasts 
they  have  killed.  "They  huddle,  naked  and  shivering,  about 
little  fires,  into  which,  when  they  drop  off  to  sleep,  they  are 
apt  to  roll  and  scorch  themselves."  For  a  second  illustration, 
they  do  not  understand  the  true  physiology  of  sex,  but  imagine 
that  birth  is  due  to  the  entrance  of  ancestral  spirits  into  the 
bodies  of  the  women.**  Of  course  Dr.  Lang,  in  his  usual  breezy 
fashion,  insists  upon  "collaborating  by  suggesting  objections,'"' 
but  in  the  matter  of  the  points  noted  his  success  is  more  rhetor- 
ical than  real.  For  the  rest,  it  is  enough  to  remark  that  these 
tribes  are  all  in  the  hunting  stage,  and  the  lowest  at  that;  that 
their  implements  are  of  stone,  and  of  the  nature  "usually  de- 
scribed as  characteristic  of  Pala3olithic  and  Neolithic  man";* 
that  they  possess  no  pottery,  but  only  wooden  pitchis;  that  in 
the  matter  of  government  "there  is  no  one  to  whom  the  term 
'chief,'  or  even  head  of  the  tribe,  can  be  properly  applied;  but 
on  the  other  hand  there  are  certain  of  the  elder  men,  the  heads 
of  local  groups,  who,  at  any  great  ceremonial  gathering  .  .  . 
take  the  lead  and  superintend  matters.  They  form,  as  it  were, 
an  inner  council  or  cabinet  and  completely  control  everything."" 
The  local  headmen  of  totemic  groups  normally  receive  their 
office  by  heredity;  but  the  office  is  concerned  chiefly  with  seeing 
to  the  performance  of  totemic  ceremonies.  "In  all  of  the  tribes 
there  is  a  division  into  local  groups,  which  occupy  certain  well- 
defined  areas  within  the  tribal  territory.  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  one  man  being  regarded  as  the  owner  of  any  tract  of 


0  The  Origin  of  Totemism,  J.  G.  Frazer,  in  Fortnightly  Review,  Vol.  71^ 
p.  648. 

7  Id.,  pp.  1012  ff,  Mr.  Frazer's  Theory  of  Totemism. 

8  N.  T.2,  Chap.  XXIII,  csp.  p.  635. 
ON.  T.2,  20,  21. 


WONDER  IN  CENTRAL  A USTBALIAN  BELIEF  AND  STOBY.     139 

country.  In  every  case  the  unit  of  division  is  the  local  totemic 
group.  "^°  Descent  is  reckoned  in  some  tribes  by  maternal,  in 
others  by  paternal,  rule.  The  marriage  customs  vary  from  in- 
dividual marriage  to  what  amounts  to  group  marriages  at  cer- 
tain times.^^ 

In  turning  to  speak  of  the  general  religious  conditions,  it 
is  to  be  noted  that  those  tendencies  of  mental  operation  already 
noticed  as  working  rather  against,  than  for,  wonder,  will  prob- 
ably be  found  to  exist  with  peculiar  force  among  a  people  so 
low  in  the  economic  scale  as  the  details  just  given  have  indi- 
cated. Among  them,  indeed,  there  is  to  be  met  no  conception 
of  an  unexceptional  regularity;  spirits  of  ancestors  are  as  com- 
mon as  men  and  women,  or  dogs  and  trees;  they  can  conceive 
of  no  natural  impossibility;  their  curiosity  passes  into  a  crude 
imagination,  severely  dominated  by  a  narrow  field  of  conscious- 
ness and  the  materials  of  the  past,  instead  of  into  a  discriminat- 
ing reflection;  credulity  and  belief  are  among  them  as  bigoted 
under  authority  as  conceivable,  or  as  their  incredulity  and  dis- 
belief are  under  the  absence  of  authority;  magic  is  their  "sci- 
ence," practised  to  a  certain  extent  by  everyone.  In  a  word, 
as  being  among  the  lowest  of  races,  these  Australian  tribes 
represent  in  greatest  degree  the  activity  of  all  those  tendencies 
which,  making  against  wonder,  have  been  ascribed  to  primitive 
man.  One  has  but  to  read  the  pages  of  Howitt  and  Spencer- 
Gillen  in  order  to  give  ready  assent  to  these  matters.  The  more 
important  task  is  to  inquire  how  far  operative  are  those  contrary 
tendencies  that  are  friendly  to  the  beginnings  and  development 
of  wonder.  In  the  directions  from  which  the  previous  chapter 
has  taught  us  to  look  for  manifestations  of  wonder,  is  there  any- 
thing to  be  observed ;  or  are  conditions  here  so  extremely  primitive 
as  to  give  no  hope  for  the  detection  of  wonder-elements  in  myth 
and  legend? 

Here,  again,  there  is  no  necessity  for  a  very  extended  view; 
for  in  the  previous  chapter  much  of  the  support  of  the  wonder- 
making  tendencies  was  dra^\^l  from  the  very  works  we  are  now 
considering.     It  is  enough  to  mention  those  tendencies  again 


10  N.  T.2,  27.     See,  further,  Chap.  III. 

11  N.  T.2,  141. 


140  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABVELLOUS. 

and  emphasize  them  briefly  by  further  references  to  the  beliefs 
and  mental  attitudes  of  these  Australian  aborigines. 

The  universal  belief  in  spirit  ancestors  was  mentioned  a 
moment  ago.  Certain  peculiarities  connected  with  this  belief 
must  now  be  noticed.  It  appears  that  the  common  belief  is  in 
a  great  body  of  spirit  individuals  who  were  derived  from  totemic 
ancestors  and  are  constantly  undergoing  reincarnation.  These 
totemic  ancestors  are  in  themselves  strange  creatures  and  of 
extraordinary  powers;  they  will  be  discussed  when  the  legends 
are  taken  up.  At  present,  it  must  be  stated  that  the  ancestors 
appear  far  more  marvellous  than  the  spirits  they  left  at  various, 
centers;  the  latter,  indeed,  are  nothing  more  than  the  concep- 
tion of  the  'life'  of  the  individual  passing  on  from  one  incarna- 
tion to  another,  and  as  such  the  spirit  is  as  actual  a  part  of 
the  body  as  an  arm  or  leg,  and  far  more  necessary.  Aitiological 
these  spirits  may  even  be  called,  since  they  explain  the  phenom- 
ena of  procreation,  as  was  seen  above  in  the  quotation  from 
Frazer,  and  explicate  the  mystery  of  the  origin  of  man.  "In 
the  Warramunga  tribe  the  women  are  very  careful  not  to  strike 
the  trunks  of  certain  trees  with  an  axe,  because  the  blow  might 
cause  spirit  children  to  emanate  from  them  and  enter  their 
bodies.  They  imagine  that  the  spirit  is  very  minute, — about, 
the  size  of  a  small  grain  of  sand, — and  that  it  enters  the  woman 
through  the  navel  and  grows  within  her  into  the  child.  "^-  The- 
Arunta  leave  a  small  depression  on  one  side  of  the  burial  mound 
in  order  that  the  spirit  may  pass  in  and  out  to  visit  the  body.^' 
Upon  the  death  of  a  man  his  spirit,  which  the  Urabunna  then 
call  kumpira,  goes  back  to  the  place  where  it  was  originally 
left  by  the  totemic  ancestor.  There  it  may  remain  for  some- 
time; but  sooner  or  later  it  is  reincarnated."  Occasionally  the 
spirit  can  be  heard  making  a  low  kind  of  whistling  sound."' 
The  Binbinga  believe  that  both  men  and  women  can  see  the 
spirit  children  at  the  mungai  spots.^"  Moreover,  it  is  to  be  sur- 
mised that  among  all  the  tribes  the  only  reason  that  would  be: 


12  N.  T.2,  331. 

13  N.  T.2,  506. 

14  N.  T.2,  148. 
"  Ibid.,  530. 
^^Ibid.,  171. 


WONDER  IN  CENTRAL  AUSTRALIAN  BELIEF  AND  STORY.     141 

put  forward  for  the  invisibility  of  the  spirits  would  be  their 
minuteness.  A  small  grain  of  sand  passing  quickly  from  a  tree 
or  a  rock  into  a  woman's  navel  could  be  seen  only  with  the 
greatest  difficulty/^  Other  details  might  be  added,  which  would 
still  further  indicate  the  truth  of  the  conclusion  to  be  dra^vn 
from  those  we  have  mentioned.  The  universality  of  the  spirits, 
their  commonness,  their  scientific  or  aitiological  aspect,  the  perfect 
and  matter-of-fact  belief  in  them,  the  materialistic  conception :  all 
these  suggest  nothing  of  wonder;  while  the  possible  visibility  of 
the  grain-like  'soul'  deprives  us  of  even  that  hopeful  source  of 
mystery — invisibility. 

There  are,  how^ever,  certain  specialized  spirits  that  promise 
far  more  for  wonder.  These  special  spirits  are  not  subject 
to  reincarnation,  nor  are  their  form  and  size  undifferen- 
tiated and  minute  as  a  grain  of  sand.  Rather,  they  have  the 
appearance  of  men,  and  possess  often  the  power  of  making 
medicine-men.  They  practically  amount  to  Alcheringa  men, 
and  possess  all  the  extraordinary  powers  usually  attributed  to 
such.  Among  the  Warramunga  a  spirit  called  puntidir,  who 
lives  out  in  the  Mulga  scrub,  is  said  to  make  medicine-men. 
Two  puntidirs,  for  instance,  after  killing  (by  magic)  a  sleeping 
native,  "cut  him  open  and  took  all  his  insides  out,  providing 
him,  however,  with  a  new  set,  and  finally,  they  put  a  little 
snake  inside  his  body,  which  endowed  him  with  the  powers 
of  a  medicine-man."^^  Among  the  Arunta  the  same  kind  of 
spirit  individuals  are  called  iruntarinia}^  "In  the  Binbinga 
tribe  the  doctors  are  supposed  to  be  made  by  the  spirits,  who  are 
called  Mundadji  and  Munkaninji,  father  and  son."  A  story 
is  told  of  how  the  old  Mundaji  caught  a  native  by  the  neck, 
killed  him,  "cut  him  open,  right  down  the  middle  line,  took 
out  all  his  insides  and  exchanged  them  for  those  of  himself.  .  .  . 
.  .  .  At  the  same  time  he  put  a  number  of  sacred  stones  in  his 
body.  After  it  was  all  over,  Munkaninji  came  up  and  restored 
him  to  life,  told  him  that  he  was  now  a  medicine-man,   and 


17  For  further  examples,  see  N.  T.2,   145,  150,  162,  163,  169,  170,  258, 
330,  421,  430,  431,  450,  451,  505,  513,  519,  527. 

18  N.  T.2,  484.    For  Alcheringa,  see  below,  p.  152. 

10  For  a  full  description,  see  N.  T.i    {■=  Native  Tribes  of  Central  Aus- 
tralia), Chap.  XV. 


142  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

showed  him  how  to  extract  bones  and  other  forms  of  evil  magic 
out  of  men.  Then  he  took  him  away  up  into  the  sky  and  brought 
him  down  to  cartli  close  to  his  own  camp,  where  he  heard  the 
natives  mourning  for  him,  thinking  he  was  dead.  For  a  long 
time  he  remained  in  a  more  or  less  dazed  condition,  but  grad- 
ually he  recovered  and  the  natives  knew  that  he  had  been  made 
into  a  medicine-man.  When  he  operates,  the  spirit  of  IMunkan- 
inji  is  supposed  to  be  near  at  hand  watching  him,  unseen  of 
course  by  ordinary  people. "-''  Now  everything  here  points  to 
a  development  of  wonder.  The  specialization  in  itself  would 
suggest  it ;  the  extraordinary  powers,  the  spirit  being  considered 
as  a  great  source  of  magical  power  and  capable  of  bringing  the 
dead  to  life,  carrying  the  individual  up  into  the  sky,  etc.,  would 
further  indicate  it ;  the  esoteric  nature  of  the  experience,  and  the 
alliance  of  the  spirit  with  the  mysterious  medicine-man,  would 
render  the  presence  of  wonder  more  than  probable ;  the  obviously 
trance-like  condition  under  which  the  subject  sees  the  spirit, 
and  the  strong  air  of  deceptive  exaggeration  in  the  tale  of  the 
whole  encounter  as  set  forth  by  the  self-interested  doctor,  would 
beyond  doubt  win  a  gaping  wonder  from  the  crowd ;  and,  finally, 
quite  in  line  with  our  previous  observations,  these  spirits,  as 
associated  in  the  popular  consciousness  with  mystery,  are,  un- 
like the  others  noted  above,  held  to  be  invisible  save  to  the  spe- 
cially and  wonderfully  initiated. 

From  spirits  it  is  a  short  step  to  gods.  Have  these  tribes 
any  conception  of  an  All-Father,  as  Dr.  Lang  would  like  to 
believe;  or  of  any  sort  of  a  deity?  What  Howitt  has  to  say 
upon  the  matter  has  already  been  quoted.  He  can  find  no 
grounds  for  assigning  to  the  tribes  of  southeast  Australia  any 
conception  of  divinity,  but  remarks  upon  the  difficulty  with 
which  a  modern  mind  avoids  attributing  a  sense  of  deity  to 
IMungan,  Nurrundere,  Baiame,  Daramulun,  and  the  like,  who 
are  all  spiritual  idealizations  of  those  great  and  ancient  head- 
men who,  with  extraordinary  powers,  created  man  and  formed 
the   features   of   the   landscape.-^       These   beings,   supposed   to 


20  N.  T.2,  487.     See  also  pp.  488,  501,  502. 

21  Howitt,  op.  cit.,  pp.  488  ff. 


WONDER  IN  CENTRAL  A  USTRALIAN  BELIEF  AND  STORY.     143 

be  still  existing  as  spirits,  seem  to  be  practically  identical 
with  the  totemic  ancestors  of  the  tribes  visited  by  Spencer  and 
Gillen.  Of  these,  those  authors  remark :  "In  connection  with 
their  totemic  ancestors  it  may  be  said  that  there  is  apparently 
no  indication  of  the  development  of  beliefs  which  might  lead 
ultimately  to  the  association  with  one  or  other  of  them  of  spe- 
cial attributes  resulting  in  their  finally  being  regarded  in  the 
light  of  deities."--  Short  of  deity,  however,  there  are  to  be 
met  certain  particular  spirits  that  may  well  be  mentioned  here. 
In  the  Arunta  tribe  there  are  mischievous  spirits  called  Oruntja, 
whom  the  natives  fear, — especially  during  the  night-time.  They 
are  in  the  habit  of  snatching  lonely  wanderers  and  carrying 
them  off  underground.  Twanyirika  is  another  Arunta-made 
spirit;  he  is  used  for  terrifying  the  women  and  children.  At- 
natu,  of  the  Kaitish  tribe,  has  more  definite  characteristics :  a 
very  great  man;  with  a  very  black  face;  with  no  anus;  self- 
made  a  very  great  while  ago,  even  before  the  Old  Time;  the 
maker,  indeed,  of  that  Old  Time  or  Alcheringa,  and  of  every- 
thing that  the  blackfellow  has.  There  are  various  tales  about 
him.  The  Binbinga,  in  addition  to  the  Mundadji  mentioned 
in  the  last  paragraph,  believe  in  a  friendly  spirit,  Ulurkura, 
who  lives  in  the  woods  and  rescues  men  from  the  clutches  of 
the  Mundadji.  Only  medicine-men  can  see  him.  The  Mara 
have  a  similar  spirit  whom  they  call  Mumpani.  Now,  all  these 
spirits,  including  those  that,  like  Twanyirika,  are  mere  bogies 
to  frighten  the  women  and  children,  are  specializations  to  be 
compared  with  the  spirits  that  make  the  doctors;  and  as  such 
they  undoubtedly  count  toward  wonder.  But  Avhether  or  not 
they  are  actually  provocative  of  wonder,  remains  a  question. 
There  is  not  about  them,  with  the  exception  of  Atnatu,  that 
fullness  of  wonderful  tale  and  adventure,  that  exaggeration  and 
individuality,  which  characterize  the  spirits.  What  is  certain, 
however,  is  that  none  of  them  possesses  the  moral,  cultural,  or 
propitiatory  characters  of  a  supreme  being.-^ 

There  can  be,  then,  no  differentiation  of  a  priestly  office. 
The  nearest  to  that  is  the  company  of  elders  who  direct  the  ini- 


"•-  N.  T.-,  496. 

23  See  N.  T.2,  Chap.  XVI. 


144  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

tiation  and  totemic  ceremonies;  but  they  possess  none  of  the 
priestly  powers  or  characteristics. 

The  magician,  however,  reigns  supreme.  His  power  is  care- 
fully segregated  from  the  common  magic;  his  office  is  hedged 
mightily  with  mystery.  The  article  of  M.  ]\Iauss,  the  most  ex- 
haustive upon  the  subject,  has  already  been  mentioned;-*  and 
the  abstracts  from  Spencer-Gillen  given  a  few  paragraphs  back 
represent  one  method  of  initiation  into  that  office.  All  medicine- 
men are  "supposed  to  have  had  stones  or  other  objects  placed 
in  their  bodies  by  certain  spirit  individuals,  and  by  virtue  of 
them  they  can  counteract,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  the  evil 
magic  to  which  any  bodily  pain  is  always  attributed."-^  Their 
power  is,  with  one  or  two  exceptions,  wholly  curative  and  bene- 
ficial. The  recital  of  one  or  two  more  instances  of  initiation 
will  clearly  show  the  mystery  and  wonder  of  the  making  of 
medicine-men.  Sometimes  they  are  made  by  other  medicine- 
men, instead  of  by  Iruntarinia  as  above.  "A  celebrated  med- 
icine-man named  Ilpailurkna,  a  member  of  the  Unmatjera  tribe, 
told  us  that,  when  he  was  made  into  a  medicine-man,  a  very 
old  doctor  came  one  day  and  threw  some  of  his  atnongara  stones 
at  him  with  a  spear-thrower.  Some  hit  him  on  the  chest,  others 
went  right  through  his  liead,  from  ear  to  ear,  killing  him.  The  old 
man  then  cut  out  all  his  insides,  intestines,  liver,  heart,  lungs — 
everything  in  fact,  and  left  him  lying  all  night  long  on  the  ground. 
In  the  morning  the  old  man  came  and  looked  at  him  and  placed 
some  more  atnongara  stones  inside  his  body  and  in  his  arms 
and  legs,  and  covered  over  his  face  with  leaves.  Then  he  sang 
over  him  until  his  body  was  all  swollen  up.  When  this  was  so 
he  provided  him  with  a  complete  set  of  new  inside  parts,  placed 
a  lot  more  atnongara  stones  in  him,  and  patted  him  upon  the 
head,  which  caused  him  to  jump  up  alive.  The  old  medicine- 
man then  made  him  drink  water  and  eat  meat  containing  atnon- 
gara stones.  When  he  awoke  he  had  no  idea  as  to  where  he 
was,  and  said,  'Tju,  tju,  tju' — 'I  think  I  am  lost.'  But  when 
he  looked  around  he  saw  the  old  medicine-man  standing  beside 


24  See  above,  p.  127,  note  87. 

25  N.  T.2,  479. 


WONDEB  IN  CENTRAL  A  USTEALIAN  BELIEF  AND  STORY.     145 

liim,  and  the  old  man  said,  'No,  you  are  not  lost;  I  killed  you 
a  long  time  ago.'  Ilpailurkna  had  completely  forgotten  who  he 
was  and  all  about  his  past  life.  After  a  time  the  old  man  led 
him  back  to  his  camp  and  showed  it  to  him,  and  told  him  that 
the  woman  there  was  his  lubra,  for  he  had  forgotten  all  about 
her.  His  coming  back  in  this  way  and  his  strange  behavior  at 
once  showed  the  other  natives  that  he  had  been  made  into  a 
medicine-man, '  '^*' 

It  will  be  noticed  that  this  story  does  not  differ  materially 
from  the  one  quoted  above  where  Mundadji  and  ]\Iunkaninji 
made  a  medicine-man  in  the  Binbinga  tribe,  except  in  the  fact 
that  where  the  operators  in  that  case  were  spirits,  the  operator 
here  is  represented  as  "a  very  old  doctor."  Among  the  War- 
ramunga  tribe  the  making  of  medicine-men  by  old  practitioners 
from  the  neighboring  Worgaia  tribe  is  one  of  the  most  secret 
of  their  customs.  But  the  similarity  of  the  tales,  in  spite  of 
the  difference  of  the  agents,  is  remarkable,  and  indicates  a  long 
tradition  and  jejune  custom^'^  within  which  the  imagination 
moves  only  in  exaggeration  of  certain  well-known  and  long- 
used  properties.  The  killing,  slitting,  deprivation  of  entrails, 
placing  of  magical  stones  within  the  body  together  with  new 
entrails,  the  strange  awakening  and  weird  return  to  camp,  are 
properties  recurring  again  and  again  in  stories  throughout  the 
region  explored.  What  was  the  original  reason  for  the  stone 
detail  can  only  be  conjectured.  It  may  have  had  some  reference 
to  the  sensations  of  the  wizard  when  under  neuropathic  con- 
ditions; or  the  stones  may  have  been  regarded  as  powerful 
through  association  with  sacred  spots,  such  as  the  oknanikilla, 
where  the  totemic  ancestors  went  into  the  ground,  leaving  their 
spirit  parts  behind  them;  but  more  probably  it  was  the  mere 
handiness  to  the  imagination  of  stones  to  represent  the  material- 
istic conception  of  magic  power.  Among  the  Arunta  we  have 
seen  that  a  snake  was  used  in  place  of  stones.-**    This  explana- 


20  N.  T.2,  480. 

27  Especially  in  view  of  the  wide  ilistribution  of  the  tales  throughout 
tribes  that  for  years  have  had  little  or  no  communication.  This  would 
imply  an  antiquity  of  the  tales  equal  to  that  of  the  original  distribution 
of  the  tribes. 

28  Cf.  also  the  Jcupitja,  and  the  Irman,  N.  T.2,  484-5. 


146  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABFELLOUS. 

tion  is  on  a  par  with  the  materialistic  conception  of  all  disease 
and  illness  as  an  affection  to  be  got  rid  of  by  the  supposed 
removal  of  some  object,  a  small  stick  or  stone,  from  the  body 
of  the  patient.  The  magical  power  of  the  medicine-man  was 
probably  regarded  as  only  a  particular  kind  of  bodily  affection 
or  disease,  as  it  were;  and  his  stones  were  only  the  particular 
stones  that  caused  those  peculiar  affections.  Again,  the  origin 
of  the  detail  of  disemboweling  rests  in  conjecture,  and  must 
have  had  a  beginning  equally  simple  and  commonplace  with 
that  of  the  atnongara.  The  strange  awakening  and  return 
seem  clearly  the  product  of  sensation-experiences,  probably 
neuropathic.  But,  w^hatever  the  origin  of  such  details  in  a  re- 
mote antiquity,  before  the  various  tribes  had  branched  off  from 
a  parent  stock,  their  present  state  reveals  all  the  mystery  of 
arbitrary  and  inexplicable  power  that  alwaj^s  characterizes 
the  mummeries  of  magic,  whether  in  the  wilds  of  Africa,  the 
fairs  of  the  middle  ages,  or  the  seances  of  modern  spiritualism. 
The  following  case  from  the  Arunta  well  illustrates  the 
deceptive  accessories  of  the  magic-man.  From  such  deception 
springs  a  fearful  belief  in  another's  magical  power,  although 
the  individual  believer  is  aware  of  his  own  impotence, — a  state 
of  belief  distinctly  favorable  to  the  wonderful,  as  has  previously 
been  remarked.-"  When  any  man  of  the  Arunta  tribe  feels  that  he 
may  become  a  wizard,  he  goes  alone  to  a  cave  where  the  Irunta- 
rinia  are  supposed  to  dwell.  "Here,  with  considerable  trepida- 
tion, he  lies  down  to  sleep,  not  venturing  to  go  inside,  or  else 
he  would,  instead  of  becoming  endowed  with  magic  power,  be 
spirited  away  forever.  At  break  of  day,  one  of  the  Iruntarinm 
comes  to  the  mouth  of  the  cave,  and,  finding  the  man  asleep, 
throws  at  him  an  invisible  lance  which  pierces  the  neck  from 
behind,  passes  through  the  tongue,  making  therein  a  large  hole, 
and  then  comes  out  through  the  mouth.  The  tongue  remains 
throughout  life  perforated  in  the  center  with  a  hole  large  enough 
to  admit  the  little  finger;  and  when  all  is  over,  this  hole  is  the 
only  visible  and  outward  sign  of  the  treatment  of  the  Iruntar- 
inia.  How  the  hole  is  really  made  it  is  impossible  to  saj^  but 
as  shown  in  the  illustration  it  is  always  present  in  the  genuine 


20  See  above,  p.  129. 


WONDEB  IN  CENTRAL  AUSTRALIAN  BELIEF  AND  STOBY.      147 

medicine-man.  In  some  way  of  course  the  novice  must  make  it 
himself;  but  naturally  no  one  will  ever  admit  the  fact,  indeed 
it  is  not  impossible  that,  in  the  course  of  time,  the  man  really 
comes  to  believe  that  it  was  not  done  by  himself.  A  second 
lance  thrown  by  the  Iruntarinia  pierces  the  head  from  ear  to 
ear,  and  the  victim  falls  dead  and  is  at  once  carried  into  the 
depths  of  the  cave.  .  .  .  Within  the  cave  the  Iruntarinia 
removes  all  the  internal  organs  and  provides  the  man  with  a 
completely  new  set,  after  which  operation  has  been  successfully 
performed  he  presently  comes  to  life  again,  but  in  a  condition 
of  insanity.  {Ainongara  stones  are  also  placed  in  his  body  by 
the  spirit.) — This  (the  insanity)  does  not  last  long,  and  when 
he  has  recovered  to  a  certain  extent  the  Iruntarinia,  who  is 
invisible  except  to  a  few  highly  gifted  medicine-men  and  also 
to  the  dogs,  leads  him  back  to  his  own  people.  The  spirit  then 
returns  to  the  cave,  but  for  several  days  the  man  remains  more 
or  less  strange  in  his  appearance  and  behaviour  until  one  morn- 
ing it  is  noticed  that  he  has  painted  with  powdered  charcoal 
and  fat  a  broad  band  across  the  bridge  of  his  nose.  All  signs 
of  insanity  have  disappeared,  and  it  is  at  once  recognized  that 
a  new  medicine-man  has  graduated.  According  to  etiquette  he 
must  not  practise  his  profession  for  about  a  year,  and  if  during 
this  time  of  probation  the  hole  in  the  tongue  closes  up,  as  it 
sometimes  does,  then  he  will  consider  that  his  virtues  as  a  med- 
icine-man have  departed,  and  he  will  not  practise  at  all.  ]\Iean- 
while,  he  dwells  upon  his  experiences,  doubtless  persuading 
himself  that  he  has  actually  passed  through  those  which  are 
recognised  as  accompanying  the  making  of  a  medicine-man  by 
the  Iruntarinia,  and  at  the  same  time  he  cultivates  the  acquain- 
tance of  other  medicine-men,  and  learns  from  them  the  secrets 
of  the  craft,  which  consist  principally  in  the  ability  to  hide 
about  his  person  and  produce  at  will  small  quartz  pebbles  or 
bits  of  stick;  and,  of  hardly  less  importance  than  this  sleight- 
of-hand,  the  power  of  looking  preternaturally  solemn,  as  if  he 
were  the  possessor  of  knowledge  quite  hidden  from  ordinary 
men.  "30 


SON.  T.i,  523-525. 


148  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

Deception  and  exaggeration  go  hand  in  hand:  and  the  de- 
ceptive character  of  the  magician  is  no  more  evident  in  this 
story  than  is  the  habit  of  exaggerating  details  in  order  to  win 
popidar  regard.  A  word  further  may  be  hazarded  upon  this 
subject.  AVhik^  the  power  of  magic  by  itself  is  not  yet  a  matter 
of  wonder  to  the  aborigines,  who  all  possess  some  degree  of  it,'^ 
the  magician  is  distinguished  by  his  superior  endowment  in  mag- 
ical lore  and  ability,  as  well  as  by  the  mysterious  methods 
undertaken  to  secure  the  endowment.  The  power  is  not  different 
in  kind,  but  exaggerated  in  degree;  and  the  consciousness  of 
his  exaggerated  position  continually  dictates  to  the  magician  a 
course  of  deceit  and  mendacity  calculated  to  heighten  still 
further  his  position  in  popular  superstition.  From  this  fertile 
field  arises  the  wonder  of  these  Australian  medicine-men.  It 
is  hardly  right  to  look  for  examples  of  this  wonder  in  the 
pseudo-medical  acti\aties  of  the  doctors,  inasmuch  as  their  prac- 
tices of  pretending  to  remove  twigs  from  the  bodies  of  their 
patients  are  the  commonly  acknowledged  materia  medica  of  the 
tribe;  but  it  is  entirely  proper  to  insist  that  only  the  doctors 
possess  this  curative  power,  and  that,  while  having  presumably 
gained  it  through  mysterious  and  awful  methods,  they  are  ex- 
tremely careful  to  surround  the  exercise  of  the  power  with  all 
the  exaggeration  of  ceremony  and  hocus-pocus  that  will  impress 
the  ignorant  with  a  sense  of  strange  and  extraordinary  condi- 
tions. One  of  the  most  valuable  of  the  mysterious  accessories 
is  the  kupitja,  a  small  object  worn  through  the  nose  by  the 
medicine-men  of  the  Warramunga  tribe.  Spencer  and  Gillen 
say  that  "the  most  profound  mystery  attaches  to  this  innocent- 
looking  little  article. "^^  "No  young  medicine-man  to  whom 
one  of  them  has  been  given  would  ever  dream  of  conducting  an 
investigation  into  its  structure.  He  implicitly  believes  the  old 
man,  who  tells  him  that  it  was  made  in  the  Alcheringa  and  is 
full  of  magic  power.  "^^  In  serious  cases  a  great  deal  is  made 
of  these  instruments,  which  are  supposed  to  counteract  the  evil 
magic  resident  in  the  patient  by  being  projected  into  his  body. 


31  See,  e.g.,  N.  T.2,  Chap.  XIV,  p.  456;   N.  T.i,  530,  534  flF. 

32  N.  T.2,  485. 

33  N.  T.2,  484,  note. 


WONDEB  IN  CENTEAL  A  VSTEALIAN  BELIEF  AND  STOEY.     149 

The  old  Worgaia-man  who  makes  them  is  fully  aware  of  the 
exaggerated  importance  and  sanctity  to  be  gained  by  his  pos- 
session of  the  Icupitjas,  and  steadfastly  refused  to  confess  his 
authorship.  He  persisted  in  claiming  that  they  were  made  in 
the  Alcheringa  * '  by  some  very  powerful  old  snakes. '  '^*  Extraor- 
dinary as  the  magicians'  powers  may  appear,  however,  the  belief 
of  the  natives  in  their  reality  and  efficacy  is  perfect.  Examples  of 
this  recur  again  and  again :  and  were  it  not  for  the  tremendous 
insistence  upon  the  extraordinary  character  of  the  magicians' 
powers,  which  overbalances  the  wonder-destroying  power  of  abso- 
lute belief ;  were  it  not  for  the  careful  exaggeration  of  the  rarity 
of  their  office  and  endowments,  the  wonder  of  these  magical  prac- 
tices might  well  sink  beneath  the  chilling  effect  of  a  matter-of- 
fact  belief.  The  whole  set  of  circumstances  is  well  illustrated 
by  the  following  picture  from  the  Arunta  tribe.  "In  serious 
cases  the  action  is  more  dramatic,  and  the  medicine-man  needs 
a  clear  space  in  which  to  perform.  The  patient,  perhaps  too 
ill  to  sit  up,  is  supported  by  some  individual,  while  the  medicine- 
man who  has  been  called  in  and  may  have  come  a  long  distance, 
gravely  examines  him  and  consults  with  other  practitioners  who 
may  be  present.  .  .  .  The  diagnosis  may  occupy  some  time, 
during  which  everyone  maintains  a  very  solemn  appearance,  all 
conversation  being  carried  on  in  whispers.  As  a  result  the 
medicine-man  will  perhaps  pronounce  that  the  sick  man  is  suf- 
fering from  a  charmed  bone  inserted  by  a  magic  individual, 
such  as  a  Kurdaitcha;  or  perhaps,  worse  still,  the  verdict  is 
that  one  of  the  Iruntarinia  has  placed  in  his  body  an  Ullinka 
or  short  barbed  stick  attached  to  an  invisible  string,  the  pulling 
of  which,  by  the  malicious  spirit,  causes  great  pain.  If  the  latter 
be  the  case  it  requires  the  greatest  skill  of  a  renowned  medicine- 
man to  effect  a  cure.  While  a  patient  is  supported  in  a  half- 
sitting  attitude,  the  medicine-man  will  first  of  all  stand  close 
by,  gazing  down  upon  him  in  the  most  intent  way.  Then  sud- 
denly he  will  go  some  yards  off,  and  looking  fiercely  at  him  will 
bend  slightly  forwards  and  repeatedly  jerk  his  arms  outwards 
at  full  length,  with  the  hand  outstretched,  the  object  being  to 
thereby  project  some  of  the  Atnongara  stones  into  the  patient's 

34  N.  T.2,  486. 


150  STUDIES  IN  TEE  MAEFELLOUS. 

body,  the  object  of  this  being  to  counteract  the  evil  influence 
at  work  within  the  latter.  Going  rapidly  and  with  a  character- 
istic high-knee  action  from  one  end  of  the  cleared  space  to  the 
other  he  repeats  the  movement  with  dramatic  action.  Finally, 
he  comes  close  again,  and,  after  much  mysterious  searching, 
finds  and  cuts  the  string  which  is  invisible  to  every  one  except 
himself.  There  is  not  a  doubt  among  the  onlookers  as  to  his 
having  really  done  this.  Then  once  more  the  projecting  of  the 
Atnongara  stones  takes  place,  and  crouching  down  over  the  sick 
man  lie  places  his  mouth  upon  the  affected  part  and  sucks,  until 
at  last  either  in  fragments  or,  very  rarely,  and  only  if  he  be  a 
very  distinguished  medicine  man,  the  Ullinka  is  extracted  whole 
and  shown  to  the  wondering  onlookers,  the  Atnongara  stones 
returning,  unseen,  once  more  into  his  own  body.  "^^ 

The  deceit  and  exaggeration,  the  mysterious  accessories  of 
the  art  and  the  wondering  credulity  of  the  onlookers,  are  all 
represented  here.  Among  the  other  exaggerated  powers  of  the 
magicians  the  following  may  be  noted  briefly.  The  Mungaberra 
attribute  special  powers  to  the  magicians,  such  as  ability  to 
transform  themselves  into  eagle-hawks,  and,  thus  disguised, 
travel  long  distances  during  the  night.'^"  In  many  of  the  tribes 
the  magician  is  able  to  affect  a  whole  group  of  men  and  women 
with  disease,  or  to  discover  the  individual  who  is  responsible 
for  the  death  of  any  native.^^  The  Mara  medicine-man  possesses 
the  power  "of  climbing  at  night-time  by  means  of  a  rope,  invis- 
ible to  ordinary  mortals,  into  the  sky,  where  he  can  hold  con- 
verse with  the  star  people."^®  Howitt''^  mentions  other  powers, 
such  as  rain-making,  clairvoyance,  spirit-mediumship,  enchant- 
ment by  song,  etc.,  etc. 

It  is  now  evident  that,  among  the  forces  counting  for  wonder, 
the  belief  in  spirits,  or  the  animistic  force,  tends  to  produce 
wonder  only  in  the  case  of  the  special  spirits  segregated  from 


■•■■•  X.  T.i,  .0.31-2.     Cf.  Ilowitt,  386-387. 

36  N.  T.i,  533.     Cf.  Ilowitt,  374,  388. 

37  N.  T.I,  532,  533. 

38  N.  T.2,  488.     Cf.  Howitt,  359. 
soHowitt,  Chap.  VII. 


WONDER  IN  CENTRAL  A  USTRALIAN  BELIEF  AND  STORY.     151 

the  great  reincarnating  mass;  that  in  the  absence  of  definitely 
conceived  gods  we  may  turn  only  to  these  particular  spirits  for 
a  sign  of  that  wonder  usually  attributed  to  the  god.  That  the 
magician,  furthermore,  offers  the  example  of  the  most  powerful 
of  the  forces  making  for  wonder,  is  clearly  seen  by  his  segre- 
gated character,  mysterious  initiation,  extraordinary  powers, 
practice  of  deceit  and  exaggeration,  and  by  the  popular  rever- 
ence extended  to  him. 

With  the  completion  of  this  preliminary  view  it  is  conven- 
ient to  pass  directly  to  an  examination  of  the  totemistic  legends 
collected  by  Spencer  and  Gillen  in  their  second  volume.*"  A 
great  part  of  these  traditions  consists  of  the  sort  of  details  just 
discussed  under  the  aspects  of  spirit  and  magician.  These  very 
tales,  indeed,  are  the  sources  which  furnish  the  data  for  those 
aspects.  No  further  discussion  along  those  lines  will  be  neces- 
sary.*^ But  closely  related  to  the  totemic  ancestor,  and  so  lead- 
ing us  to  a  view  of  the  relations  between  wonder  and  that  most 
important  and  puzzling  of  primitive  customs,  the  totem,  is  a 
further  mass  of  details  which  must  now  be  investigated. 

The  great  similarity  of  all  the  legends  renders  possible  the 
selection  of  a  typical  story,  which  may  be  prefixed  to  the  enu- 
meration of  the  details.  Here  is  the  tradition  of  the  origin  of 
the  Unmatjera  as  gathered  from  their  own  lips,  but  told  in 
the  words  of  the  collector.  ' '  In  the  Alcheringa  an  old  crow  man 
sat  down  at  Ungurla  by  the  side  of  what  is  now  called  the  "Wood- 
forde  River.  He  arose  at  first  from  a  Churinga,  and  when  he 
came  out  he  looked  at  himself  and  said,  'I  think  that  I  must  be  a 
hawk;  but  no — I  am  too  black.'  Then  he  thought  that  he  was 
an  eagle-hawk,  but  decided  that  he  had  too  much  wing;  then 
he  looked  at  his  arms,  out  of  which  black  feathers  had  sprouted, 
and  said,  'I  am  a  crow.'    When  the  sun  shone  he  sat  out  on  the 


40  N.  T.2,  Chap.  XIII. 

41  The  following  referencos  to  spirit  and  magic  in  the  legends  may  be 
appended:  Spirits,  N.  T.2,  396,  417,  421,  435.  445,  450;  special  individ- 
uals who  can  see  them,  450-451;  reincarnation,  404,  419,  450;  Atnatu,  420; 
spirit-children,  423,  426.  428,  431,  438,  441,  444,  450;  sacredness  of  the 
Nanja,  448.  Magic,  396,  428;  as  ordinary  power,  456,  466,  477;  rain- 
maker, 393;  magic-song,  421,  443;  power  of  the  left  hand,  425,  426,  428; 
pointing-sticks,  433;  regarded  with  awe,  462. 


152  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABVELLOUS. 

top  of  a  hill  wanning  himself,  and  when  it  set  he  went  back  to 
his  Churinga  camp  and  slept  there.  One  day  he  saw,  far  away 
in  the  distance,  a  lot  of  inmintera — that  is,  incomplete  men 
and  women — belonging  to  the  Unmatjera  tribe.  He  decided  to 
go  over  and  make  them  into  men  and  women.  He  did  this  by 
means  of  his  beak,  and  then  returned  to  his  camp  and  there 
made  a  Churinga  lelira,  a  sacred  stone  knife,  with  which  he 
intended  to  come  back  and  circumcise  them.  Meanwhile,  how- 
ever, two  old  Parenthie  lizard  men  had  come  up  from  far  awaj'' 
to  the  south,  and,  with  their  teeth,  they  both  circumcised  and 
subincised  the  men,  and  performed  the  operation  of  atna-ariltha- 
kuyna  upon  the  women.  When  the  old  crow  had  got  his  lelira 
ready  and  was  just  about  to  start,  he  looked  out  and  saw  that 
the  two  Parenthies  had  been  before  him,  and  so  as  there  was 
nothing  further  for  him  to  do,  he  stayed  at  Ungwurla,  and  there 
he  died.  A  big  black  stone  marks  the  spot,  and  in  the  ertnata- 
lunga  there  his  lelira  is  kept,  as  well  as  a  number  of  stones 
which  are  Churinga,  and  represent  the  eggs  which  he  used  to 
void  in  the  place  of  the  usual  excrement. '  '*^ 

Our  observations  may  well  take  the  form  of  a  commentary 
upon  the  extraordinary  details  of  this  legend.  Let  it  be  first 
noticed  that  the  phrase  "In  the  Alcheringa,"  or  its  equivalents, 
*'In  the  Wingara,"  "In  the  Mungai  time,"  is  the  usual  begin- 
ning phrase,  the  "once-upon-a-time"  of  these  stories.  The  Al- 
cheringa, or  Wingara,  or  Mungai,  is  the  far  past,  or  dream- 
time,*^  in  which  the  totemic  ancestors  lived.  There  is,  then,  the 
recognition  of  a  temporal  remoteness  in  which  beginnings  began ; 
and  about  such  a  word  and  its  content  there  would  seem  at  first 
glance  to  cling  something  of  the  aroma  of  wonder  and  day  of 
faery  that  haunt  our  own  conceptions  of  primal  times.  Certain 
it  is  that  the  Central  Australian  regards  the  Alcheringa  as  a 
time  of  greater  character  than  the  present,  as  a  time  distin- 
guished by  the  play  of  extraordinary  power  and  happenings. 
".  .  .  it  may  be  remarked,"  write  our  authors,  "that  the 
further  we  pass  back  from  the  present  towards  the  Alcheringa 
times,  the  greater  are  the  powers  supposed  to  have  been  wielded 


42  N.  T.2,  399. 

^^  Alchcri  means  dream. 


WON  DEE  IN  CENTEAL  A  USTBALIAN  BELIEF  AND  STORY.     153 

by  the  members  of  the  totem."**  Such  a  conception,  however, 
is  nothing  more  than  the  simple  result  of  that  very  first  of 
exaggeration's  activities  by  which  the  contents  of  the  past  per- 
petually undergo  an  enlargement  of  figure  and  idealization  of 
power.  The  very  next  words  of  the  passage  referred  to  indicate 
that  this  simplicity  of  character  does  indeed  attach  to  the  con- 
ception. "Every  native  has  a  great  respect  for  his  kankwia 
or  grandfather,  and  imagines  him  to  have  been  a  far  greater 
man  than  he  himself  is,  while  his  kankivia's  kankivia  is  propor- 
tionately greater  still;  in  fact  we  may  say  that  the  virtues  and 
powers  of  various  kinds  attributed  to  any  ancestor  increase  in 
geometric  proportion  as  we  pass  backwards  towards  the  Alche- 
ringa.  "*^  But  such  simple  exaggeration  is  quite  other  than  our 
own  conception  of  the  Beginning;  our  wider  consciousness  and 
sad  sophistication  in  the  limitation  of  human  life  and  power 
mutually  assist  to  enchant  the  primal  day  with  the  fascination 
of  a  great  freedom,  of  a  Golden  Age,  or  of  a  Garden  of  Eden 
where  Jahve  walks  with  man  in  the  cool  of  the  evening.  The 
narrow  consciousness  of  the  Arunta  and  Unmatjera,  in  the  want 
of  such  complex  endowment,  must  take  the  phrase  "In  the  Al- 
cheringa"  with  far  less  of  enticing  strangeness.  Nor  does  the 
appellation  dream-time  indicate  the  contrary;  for  dreams  to 
them  are  material  realities.*^  Finally,  both  the  commonness  of 
the  phrase,  taken  side  by  side  with  a  mental  sluggishness  and 
indifference,  and  also  the  full  and  matter-of-fact  belief  in  such 
a  time,  so  that  "It  happened  in  the  Alcheringa"  is  sufficient 
answer  to  any  objection  as  to  possibility,*^  must  serve  as  numb- 
ing tendencies  to  the  simple  sense  of  wonder  that  is  stirred  in 
the  minds  of  the  aborigines  by  this  naive  exaggeration  of  the 
virtue  of  the  past. 

But  whatever  may  be  the  vagueness  of  the  wonder-conscious- 
ness as  touching  the  Alcheringa  in  the  abstract,  it  is  beyond  con- 
troversy that  the  ancestors  who  arose  in  that  dimness  of  time  are 
depicted  and  regarded  as  men  of  extraordinary  powers.     "The 


44  N.  T.2,  277. 

4B  N.  T.2,  277. 

46  N.  T.2,  451. 

4TN.  T.i,  137. 


154  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAIIVELLOVS. 

Central  Australian  native,"  Spencer  and  Gillen  remark,  "is 
firmly  convinced,  as  will  be  seen  from  the  accounts  relating  to 
their  Alcheringa  ancestors,  that  the  latter  were  endowed  with 
powers  such  as  no  living  man  now  possesses.  They  could  travel 
underground  or  mount  into  the  sky,  and  could  make  creeks  or 
water-courses,  mountain  ranges,  sand-hills  and  plains."*^  These 
powers  are  not  illustrated  in  the  legend  given  above,  but  it  is 
easy  to  choose  cases  from  the  great  number  furnished  in  the 
other  traditions  of  the  collection.  The  Ertwaininga  women  of 
the  Unmatjera,  when  frightened,  went  down  into  the  ground 
and  traveled  on  out  of  sight;'"'  the  ancestors  of  the  emu  totem 
of  the  Kaitish  "dived  down  into  the  ground  and  came  up  at 
Burnia,  a  long  way  off,  where  there  is  a  soakage.  "'^'^  Moreover, 
the  ancestor  usually  arises  in  the  first  place  from  the  earth  or 
rocks,  or  from  some  water-hole,  and  goes  down  into  the  same 
at  the  end.^^  Among  the  Arunta  they  arise,  as  in  the  legend 
cited  above,  from  Churinga.^^  Going  up  into  the  sky  is  a  power 
especially  attached  to  flying  totemic  ancestors,  such  as  the  flying- 
fox  and  the  white  cockatoo  ;^^  although  occasionally  the  wind 
catches  up  the  ancestor  and  sends  him  to  heaven.''*  The  making 
of  natural  features  of  the  landscape  was  one  of  the  duties,  it 
might  be  said,  of  the  Alcheringa  individuals.  "Close  to  what 
is  now  called  Powell  Creek  is  a  small  water-course,  made  in  the 
Alcheringa  by  an  old  Thamungala  (a  frilled  lizard)  man  who 
spent  his  time  there  performing  ceremonies.  A  number  of  men 
of  the  Thaballa  (laughing  boy)  Totem  came  from  Lamara,  and 
hunted  the  old  lizard  away.  As  he  travelled  on  he  made  Powell 
Creek,  and  the  course  of  the  stream  as  it  flows  away  northwards 
marks  the  line  of  retreat.""  Two  wildcat  men  made  creeks  by 
cutting  the   ground  with  their  knives;^"  the  snake-man  made 


<8N.  T.2,  490. 

49  N.  T.2,  403. 

60  Ibid.,  415. 

Bi  Ibid.,  395,  396,  400,  414,  429,  431,  433,  440,  441,  etc. 

62  Ibid.,  399. 

63 /bid.,  428,  424. 

6*  Ibid.,  444. 

65  N.  T.2,  423. 

60  Ibid.,  424,  425. 


WONDER  IN  CENTRAL  AUSTRALIAN  BELIEF  AND  STORY.     155 

many  creeks  as  he  traveled.^^  With  these  cases  may  be  grouped 
the  multitude  of  examples  of  the  rise  of  a  hill,  or  mountain 
range,  or  pile  of  rocks,  or  trees,  to  mark  the  place  of  some  Al- 
cheringa  event,  such  as  the  place  where  the  ancestor  appeared 
or  disappeared,  held  ceremonies,  or  performed  other  striking 
acts.  A  pelican  burned  up  a  duck  man's  camp,  and  a  heap  of 
stones  arose  to  mark  the  spot;^^  a  great  gum-tree  arose  to  mark 
the  spot  where  another  ancestor  died;^"  a  hill  marks  the  place 
where  an  emu  man  was  killed.''** 

Now  it  is  at  once  apparent  that  there  are  two  sorts  of  details 
in  these  examples.  There  is  the  detail  that  is  distinctly  indi- 
vidual in  its  characterization;  it  may  be  called  the  'heroic' 
detail:  such  is  the  power  of  traveling  underground,  or  up  into 
the  sky.  There  is  also  the  detail  of  causation,  or  the  aitiological 
detail,  as  it  is  usually  called:  such  are  the  making  of  creeks  and 
the  raising  of  mountains,  rocks,  etc. — Both  sorts  are  extraor- 
dinary: are  they  wonderful  to  the  Central  Australian?  This 
must  now  be  decided. 

Of  the  first,  then,  first !  Traveling  underground  is  certainly 
a  feat  not  indulged  in  by  the  native ;  unless,  as  he  might  believe, 
by  the  great  magician, — and  that  would  make  for  wonder  im- 
mediately. Indubitably  such  power  is  a  rarity  even  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  an  Australian.  Has  he  any  explanation?  Of 
course !  It  was  in  the  Alcheringa ! — a  vague,  but  to  him  per- 
fectly satisfactory  answer.  The  rarity  remains  after  the  ex- 
planation is  given, — which  is  the  condition  of  the  second  of  the 
six  cases  of  rarity.  Wonder,  therefore,  if  present  at  all,  is 
doomed  to  decay  and  extinction.^^  But  the  absence  of  any  idea 
of  unexceptional  regularity  takes  away  the  real  mental  vividness 
of  the  rarity  itself ;  and  there  is  left  only  the  somewhat  indiffer- 
ent realization  of  a  rarity  by  a  narrow  consciousness  that  finds 
some  difficulty  in  fixing  its  attention  steadily  upon  the  remote 
conditions  of  the  Alcheringa.  Thus,  the  sense  of  wonder  is  ren- 
dered still  more  precarious.     Add  to  this  the  perfect  belief  to 


57  Ibid.,  432.     Cf.  436,  438,  440. 
68 /bid.,  434. 
f'^Ihid.,  398. 

60  Ibid..  394.     Cf.  395,  396.  397,  398,  400,  405,  408,  414,  419,  420,  426. 

61  See  above,  p.  63. 


156  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

which  Spencer  and  Gillen  testify  above;*'-  and  the  common  con- 
ception of  the  powers  of  one 's  ancestors  as  increasing  from  one 's 
grandfather  to  great-grandfather,  and  so  on,  as  time  grows  more 
remote,"^ — add  these,  and,  in  spite  of  the  rarity  in  experience  of 
this  underground  traveling,  the  wonder  of  it  in  the  primitive 
Weltanschauung  glimmers  but  feebly,  if  at  all.  Finally,  it  is 
not,  perhaps,  out  of  place  to  suggest  that  the  belief  is  easily 
motived  by  the  dog-holes  with  which  the  native  is  familiar,  and 
of  which  he  sometimes  takes  advantage  for  shelter.  The  most 
that  can  be  said,  then,  is  that  there  is  here,  perhaps,  a  feeble 
inclination  to  wonder. 

JMounting  into  the  skies  is  another  'heroic'  power  which 
may  be  regarded  in  practically  the  same  light  as  traveling  un- 
derground. For  the  same  reasons  its  wonder-value  to  the  Aus- 
tralian is,  doubtless,  rather  insignificant, — a  beginning  cer- 
tainly; but  only  a  faint  beginning.  It  has  been  pointed  out, 
however,  that  this  is  a  power  often  claimed  by  the  magicians.®* 
This  circumstance,  unless  counterbalanced  by  the  winged  char- 
acter of  the  totem-animal  mentioned  in  the  illustration  above, 
might  serve  to  bring  a  remote  character  more  vividly  to  present 
attention.  Finally,  whether  or  not  these  two  powers  are  con- 
sidered cases  of  magic,  I  cannot  say.  There  is  not  sufficient 
evidence  to  allow  a  conclusion. 

Of  the  aitiologieal  details  it  may  be  necessary  to  speak  a 
trifle  more  carefully.  The  origin  of  these  details  lies  in  the 
desire  to  explain  the  'how'  of  natural  phenomena;  these  phe- 
nomena, and  not  the  ancestors,  are  to  be  regarded  as  the  stimuli 
of  the  legends.  Around  the  ancestors  as  a  convenient  nexus 
and  adequate  explanation  grew  up  the  mass  of  aitiologieal  mate- 
rial, extending  the  ancestors'  wanderings,  increasing  their  vir- 
tues, and  multiplying  their  avocations.  The  extraordinary 
necessity  and  an  extraordinary  power  existed  side  by  side  in 
the  consciousness  of  the  simple  savage:  a  power  greater  than 
his  was  needed  to  make  mountain  and  river;  his  ancestors  pos- 
sessed such  power  by  virtue  of  his  own  natural  exaggeration  of 


62  See  above,  p.  154. 

63  See  above,  p.  153. 

64  See  above,  p.  150,  and  note  38. 


WONDER  IN  CENTRAL  A  USTEALIAN  BELIEF  AND  STORY.     157 

the  remote;  the  association  of  the  two  was  inevitable,  and  the 
mental  association  was  conceived  as  objective  cause  and  effect. 
The  process  is  the  same  that  w^e  have  seen  underlying  the  prac- 
tice of  magic,  the  same  mistaking  of  subjective  contiguity  for 
objective  relation. 

But  it  must  be  emphasized  that  no  actual  wonder  attends  this 
process.^^  When  it  is  said  that  the  savage  wonders  as  to  the 
^how'  of  mountain  and  stream,  the  only  wonder  really  meant 
is  that  sort  of  wonder  that  is  merely  another  name  for  a  rather 
idle  curiosity;  the  double  use  of  the  word  'Svonder"  itself  has 
in  this  case  been  responsible  for  that  common  idea  of  the  savage 
whereby  he  appears  surrounded  by  a  halo  of  religious  or  meta- 
physical wonder  at  the  marvels  of  creation.  We  come  by  the 
mistake,  quite  respectably,  quite  eminently,  from  ancient  phil- 
osophy. "For  from  wonder  men,  both  now  and  at  the  first, 
began  to  philosophize,  having  felt  astonishment  originally  at  the 
things  which  were  more  obvious,  indeed,  among  those  that  were 
doubtful,"  says  Aristotle.^®  But  there  is  no  metaphysical  phil- 
osophizing among  the  Arunta  and  Kaitish ;  there  is  no  long  and 
arduously  concentrated  and  discriminating  attention,  intelli- 
gently, critically  focused  upon  the  'how'  of  nature.  Instead, 
there  is  the  utterly  uncritical,  momentary  experience  of  mental 
association  childishly  erected  into  a  story.  It  is  indeed  the 
■* science'  of  the  savage,  the  weakly  imaginative,  narrowly  con- 
ceived answer  to  a  question  barely  put.  But  whether  we  use 
the  word  wonder  in  its  looser  sense  of  idle  curiosity',  or  in  its 
stricter  meaning  of  a  puzzlement  of  intelligence,  in  either  sense 
there  can  be  ascribed  to  these  aitiological  details  no  significance 
in  wonder.  It  is  only  when  the  light  of  a  completer  knowledge 
begins  to  break,  as  we  have  seen  it  breaking  among  the  early 
Greek  philosophers,  that  these  extraordinary  powers,  originally 
bound  up  with  the  matter-of-fact  '  science '  of  primitive  mind,  are 
regarded  as  wonderful,  because  at  last  recognized  as  impossible. 
Belief  lasting  longer  than  'science,'  the  earlier  'science'  becomes 
a  marvel!    Thus,  too,  is  it  to-day,  bringing  the  matter  home,  in 


05  For  the  exaggeration  of  aitiological  detail  to  the  point  of  wonder,  see 
below,  p.  169. 

&«  Metaphysics,  I,  2    (Bohn's  Lib.) 


158  STUDIES  IX  TEE  MARVELLOUS. 

the  case  of  Hebrew  scripture  and  its  marvels  of  creation. 

But  of  that  another  time!  It  must  now  be  remarked  that 
the  lack  of  wonder  in  aitiologieal  detail  is  again  seen  by  the 
application  of  our  six  typical  eases  of  rarity  to  the  original 
point  of  view,  that  is  to  the  primitive  view  that  experienced 
objective  phenomena  as  a  stimulus  to  observation.  In  the  mul- 
titude of  cases  where  some  natural  object — hill,  tree,  pile  of 
rocks,  etc. — is  said  to  have  arisen  to  mark  a  sacred  spot,  it  is 
particularly  apparent  that  some  more  or  less  slight  degree  of 
rarity  has  suggested  the  need  of  explanation, — has,  in  other 
words,  motived  the  'story'.  For  instance,  it  is  said  in  one 
locality  that  when  the  old  Murunda  died  and  went  into  the 
ground  a  big  stone  arose  to  represent  his  organs,  which  were 
abnormally  developed;®'^  at  another  place  it  is  told  that  two 
Alcheringa  men  pulled  out  their  penes  and  placed  them  on  the 
ground,  whereupon,  in  each  case,  a  stone  arose  to  mark  the 
spot."*  Obviously,  in  both  examples,  the  peculiar  shape  of  the 
stone  has  given  rise  to  the  legend.  Rarity  of  size,  also,  often 
motives  a  tale.®*  Clearly  we  have  again  the  conditions  of  the 
second  of  the  six  cases, — that  where  an  actual  rarity  still  re- 
mains after  the  explanation  is  given.  The  inference  of  the  pre- 
vious paragraph  is  now  only  strengthened  by  the  conclusion  to  be 
drawn  from  these  conditions,  viz.,  the  decay  of  wonder.  Even  if 
there  could  have  been,  and  we  believe  there  could  not  have  been, 
any  real  wonder  to  begin  with,  it  must  speedily  have  fallen  into 
desuetude.  The  'heroic'  detail  shows  at  least  an  inclination  to 
wonder ;  the  aitiologieal  detail  shows  almost  an  opposition  to  any 
original  wonder. 

It  is  now  possible,  after  completing  the  discussion  of  the 
extraordinary  powers  of  the  totemic  ancestors,  to  turn  again  to 
the  first,  typical  illustration  and  carry  our  research  a  step 
further.  It  will  be  remembered  how  the  old  crow  man  found 
difficulty  in  determining  what  he  was;  how  he  finally  hit  upon 
the  crow  because  of  the  black  feathers  which  sprouted  out  of 


07  N.  T.'-:,  .396. 

68  Ihid.,  440.     Cf.  400,  408,  430. 

6»  Ihid.,  398,  433. 


WONDER  IN  CENTRAL  A  USTRALIAN  BELIEF  AND  STORY.     159 

his  arms;  how  he  possessed  a  beak,  and  yet  could  think  and 
talk  like  a  man.  It  is  this  extraordinary  union  of  natures  and 
forms,  of  man  and  beast,  that  must  now  be  examined. 

The  state  of  affairs  pictured  here  is  very  common  in  the 
legends.'^"  The  majority  of  ancestors  may  be  said  to  have  under- 
gone the  trying  ordeal  of  discovering  what  sort  of  animals  they 
were.  The  solution  of  the  anomalous  character  which  such  a 
belief  presents  to  our  eyes  lies  in  properly  emphasizing  the  fact 
that  these  ancestors  were  totemic  ancestors,  and  that  as  such 
they  were  again  and  again  the  ancestors  of  animal  totems.  Let 
us  occupy  for  a  moment  the  point  of  view  of  the  savage  who 
finds  himself  the  member  of  an  animal,  say  the  black  crow, 
totem.  Why  is  this  totem,  the  savage  asks,  the  black  crow  totem  ? 
The  obvious  answer  is  that  the  totemic  ancestor  was  a  black 
crow.  But  he  must  have  been  a  man  also !  Then  he  was  a  man 
and  a  crow  too !  In  other  words,  I  believe  that  these  details 
now  under  consideration  were  in  origin  strictly  aitiological. 
Primitive  man,  finding  himself  a  member  of  an  animal  totem, 
having  long  since  forgotten  the  reason  for  the  social  division, 
casts  about  in  his  mind  for  an  explanation  of  the  circumstance 
and  invents  the  simplest  possible  'reason', — a  reason  that 
depends  upon  nothing  else  than  the  juxtaposition  in  his  mind 
of  man  and  his  totem  animal,  and  issues  most  irrationally  and 
naively  in  the  statement  "He  was  a  black  crow!"  Nay,  more! 
His  own  state  of  mind,  and  almost  his  very  question,  are  at- 
tributed to  the  ancestor.  This  naivete  of  the  savage  becomes  the 
psychological  character  of  his  forbear.  Like  his  descendant, 
the  ancestor  speculates  as  to  what  sort  of  an  animal  he  is,  and 
finds  out  only  after  several  guesses.  These  characteristics,  and 
the  truth  of  our  interpretation,  are  well  illustrated  by  the  con- 
versation of  two  ancestors,  one  of  whom  was  Thungalla,^^  the 
other  Umbitjana."  "The  Thungalla  looked  at  his  shadow 
(illinja)  and  called  himself  Illinja.  At  first  down  grew  all 
along  his  arms  and  hair  on  his  head,  and  his  eyes  became  big 
and  stood  out  like  those  of  the  Tittherai  bird.     The  two  men 


TO  See,  e.g.,  N.  T.2,  398,  400,  402,  405,  409,  414,  420,  452, 

Ti  Name  of  a  male  class. 

72  Name  of  another  male  class. 


160  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAETELLOUS. 

discussed  matters,  and  Umbitjana  said  to  the  Thungalla,  'You 
aud  I  sit  down  little  birds',  but  Thungalla  said,  'No,  we  sit 
down  blaek-fellows,  and  we  belong  to  the  same  country.'  Then 
he  said,  'You  have  got  no  father,  you  are  my  child,  you  are 
Umbitjana,'  and  it  was  decided  that  Thungalla  was  an  opossum, 
because  fur  had  grown  on  him  like  that  of  an  opossum,  and  his. 
eyes  were  prominent,  and  that  Umbitjana  was  a  grass-seed  man, 
and  that  his  name  was  Murunda."'^  Here,  it  will  be  noted, 
after  having  decided  upon  their  classes,  Thungalla  and  Umbit- 
jana, they  proceed  to  decide  upon  their  totems.  The  Thungalla. 
has  good  reason  for  determining  his  animal,  but  the  grass-seed 
is  attributed  to  the  other  without  reason,  by  a  sort  of  primitive 
social  contract!  In  another  tale,  where  a  man  is  represented 
as  arising  from  the  grass-seed,  the  same  attempt  at  aitiological 
detail  is  shown.''* 

The  simplicity  of  the  primitive  mind  could  hardly  be  better 
illustrated  than  by  this  naive  invention;  and  the  very  obvious- 
ness of  that  simplicity,  whereby,  in  the  lack  of  such  categories 
of  the  animal  world  as  we  possess,  the  savage  is  able  without 
any  sense  of  the  irrational  or  impossible  to  attribute  animal 
characteristics  to  his  ancestors,  shows  at  once  that  wonder  is 
no  more  to  be  attached  to  the  origin  of  this  detail  than  to  the 
other  aitiological  details  already  discussed.  There  was  no  crit- 
icism based  upon  a  strict  classification  of  the  mammalia ;  to  a 
naked,  hairy  savage,  living  as  naturally  as  the  beasts,  a  little 
opossum  fur  along  his  arms  was  no  great  thing!  Originally,  at 
the  making  of  the  legend,  such  a  detail  was  not  felt  as  wonderful. 
Later,  of  course,  with  the  growth  of  a  wider  knowledge  and 
keener  criticism,  such  details  would  become  marvels;  but  the 
Central  Australian,  most  primitive  of  living  races,  has  not  yet 
reached  the  culture  stage  that  embraces  such  knowledge.  He 
may,  indeed,  be  in  advance  of  the  ancestors  who  framed  his; 
legends ;  and  so  the  road  toward  wonder  may  be  in  the  making. 
Completed  it  is  not. 

It  would  be  an  egregious  blunder  if  one  of  the  chief  elements 
of  later  wonder,  present  here  in  embryo,  were  passed  over  in 


T3  N.  T.2,  409. 

'i*Cf.  also  the  legends  of  the  Water-Totcin,  Ibid.,  418;   Laughing-boy- 
totem,  422;  Wind-totera,  444;  Eesin-totem,  444. 


WONDER  IN  CENTRAL  A  USTEALIAN  BELIEF  AND  STORY.     161 

silence.  The  talking  animal  is  of  course  one  of  the  most  common 
of  details  in  wonder-stories.  The  totemic  ancestor  is  from  one 
point  of  a  view  a  man :  as  such  he  of  course  talks  as  a  man. 
From  another  point  of  view  he  is  an  animal,  and  goes  by  the 
name  of  that  animal.  Here,  then,  is  an  animal  talking,  with 
the  best  and  clearest  of  rights  to  talk !  In  some  cases  the  animal 
character  is  still  stronger,  even  overshadowing  the  human  char- 
acter.'^^ Obviously  that  is  natural  enough, — only  a  trifle  of 
difference  in  emphasis  along  the  same  line  of  aitiological  in- 
quiry; it  militates,  however,  for  a  remarkable  state  of  affairs 
when  centuries  later  the  human  character  has  dropped  away, 
and  there  is  left  only  an  animal  who  talks  with  no  good  reason 
for  talking !  There  is  no  intention  of  implying  here  that  the 
entire  wonder  of  talking  animals  takes  its  rise  in  totemic  con- 
ditions. Probably  several  other  origins  will  be  found  also.  But 
what  is  claimed  is,  that  in  this  origin  of  the  talking  animal  there 
is  no  feeling  of  that  wonder  which,  through  the  forgetfulness 
and  growing  sophistication  of  later  ages,  comes  to  be  attached 
to  the  circumstance.  There  is  the  best  of  reasons  for  the  talk : 
it  is  a  man  talking! 

Once  again  attention  must  be  directed  to  the  type-legend 
for  further  comment.  The  crow-man  saw  one  day  a  "lot  of 
inmintera — that  is,  incomplete  men  and  women — belonging  to 
the  Unmatjera  tribe. ' '  He  engages  in  an  attempt  to  make  them 
perfect.  Now  these  inmintera,  or  intera-intera,  or  inapcrtwa, 
represent  nothing  more  nor  less  than  one  of  the  primitive  attempts 
at  explaining  the  origin  of  man.  Sometimes  it  was  the  totemic 
ancestor  who,  'rising'  from  the  ground  or  Churinga,  gave  birth 
to  the  men  of  his  totem  in  various  ways,  sucli,  for  instance,  as 
by  throwing  crystals  out  of  his  body,  throwing  out  his  muscles, 
or  merely  by  looking  at  himself;''*'  but  among  the  Umnatjera  there 
exists  this  peculiar  belief  in  imperfect  creatures,  whose  limbs 
were  not  divided,  neither  arms,  fingers,  legs  nor  toes,  whose 
noses  had  to  be  added  and  the  nostrils  bored  with  fingers,  whose 
mouths  had  to  be  slit  open,  likewise  the  eyelids.''^ 


75  C^,  e.g.,  the  Eagle-hawk,  N.  T.2,  398. 
70  N.  T.2,  430,   431,   400. 

77  N.  T.i.  389;   N.  T.2,   156,  157;   cf.,  also,  N.  T.2,  152,   154,  161,   149, 
150,  345,  399,  403. 


162  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABVELLOUS. 

It  is  difficult  to  speak  of  these  creatures  in  view  of  wonder. 
Certainly  they  are  aitiological,  and  the  cutting  loose  of  the 
limbs,  boring  of  the  nostrils,  and  slitting  of  the  eyes  by  the  old 
crow'^  suggest  an  attempt  to  account  for  the  human  form  and 
features.  Now,  inasmuch  as  all  the  aitiological  details  noted 
thus  far  have  yielded  no  original  wonder,  there  is  strong  pre- 
sumption against  assuming  any  original  wonder  here.  I  cannot, 
however,  support  that  presumption  with  any  evidence,  theoret- 
ical or  empirical.  The  most  I  am  prepared  to  assert  at  present 
is,  that  in  view  of  the  greater  differentiation  of  idea  and  image 
involved  here  over  and  above  the  other  cases  of  human  origin 
from  the  totemic  ancestor,  it  would  seem  that  the  inmintera 
would  sooner  be  felt  as  wonderful  than  would  the  animal-char- 
acter of  the  ancestors. 

There  remains  but  one  other  detail  in  the  crow  legend  that 
requires  comment,  and  that  is  the  Churinga.  To  speak  of  these 
briefly  is  to  fall  far  short  of  appreciating  their  place  and 
significance  in  the  totem  and  lives  of  its  members.  Spencer  and 
Gillen  in  their  first  volume  have  devoted  a  long  chapter  to  the 
Churinga;^''  from  the  material  there  presented  the  present  notes 
for  our  purpose  are  roughly  put  together.  The  term  Churinga 
is  applied  chiefly  to  "rounded,  oval  or  elongate,  flattened  stones 
and  slabs  of  wood  of  various  sizes";  the  smaller  ones  are  com- 
monly called  bull-roarers.  Considerable  mystery  is  attached  to 
them,  partly,  no  doubt,  in  order  to  impress  the  women  and  boys, 
who  are  never  under  any  condition  allowed  to  see  them.  "From 
time  immemorial  myths  and  superstitions  have  grown  up  around 
them,  until  now  it  is  difficult  to  say  how  far  each  individual 
believes  in  what  ...  he  must  know  to  be  more  or  less  of 
a  fraud,  but  in  which  he  implicitly  thinks  the  other  natives 
believe."  "Especially  in  connection  with  the  Churinga,  there 
are  amongst  the  Australian  natives  beliefs  which  can  have  had  no 
origin  in  fact,  but  which  have  gradually  grown  up  until  now 
they  are  implicitly  held."     In  the  Alcheringa,  each  ancestor, 


"«  N.  T.2,  1.57.     Sometimes  two  creatures  who  lived   in  the  western  sky 
performed  the  operation.     See  N.  T.2,  150. 

79  N.  T.i,  Chap.  V. 


WONDEB  IN  CENTRAL  AUSTRALIAN  BELIEF  AND  STORY.     163 

according  to  the  Arunta  and  certain  other  tribes,  was  closely 
bound  up  with  his  Churinga.  With  the  Churinga  the  spirit- 
double  of  the  individual  is  closely  associated,  and  the  belief  is 
evidently  a  modification  of  the  idea,  found  universally  in  folk- 
lore, that  the  soul  as  a  concrete  object  may  be  placed  in  some 
secure  spot  for  safe-keeping.  In  many  of  the  legends  cited  the 
ancestor  arises  from  a  Churinga,  just  as  our  crow-man  does. 

Even  in  this  short  and  unsatisfactory  account  there  are  al- 
ready apparent  several  circumstances  that  make  for  wonder. 
The  segregation  of  the  Churinga  to  the  possession  of  the  ini- 
tiated man,  the  mystery  sedulously  fomented,  the  air  of  deceit, 
the  vacillation  of  belief,  and  the  accretion  about  them  of 
legends  due  to  exaggeration  rather  than  to  fact, — all  these  are 
by  now  well-known  indications  of  the  presence  of  wonder.  Nor 
is  one's  impression  lessened  by  reading  the  long  accounts  of 
Spencer  and  Gillen.  It  should  be  noted,  however,  that  the  fear 
of  the  Churinga,  among  the  women  at  least,  may  well  overbal- 
ance any  show  of  wonder  ;^°  while  among  the  men  its  spiritual 
associations  are  scarcely  of  a  sort  (in  view  of  what  has  already 
been  said  of  the  relations  of  the  spirit-crowd  and  wonder)  to 
heighten  their  sense  of  mysterious  segregation  with  a  wonder 
born  of  religious  awe.  As  a  whole,  however,  there  seems  a 
preponderance  of  evidence  for,  rather  than  against,  a  sense  of 
wonder  concerning  these  secret  and  extremely  vital  objects. 

Before  turning  to  the  characterization  of  these  legends  as 
a  whole,  there  is  a  particular  and  somewhat  peculiar  case,  men- 
tioned earlier  in  the  same  volume,^^  which  deserves  a  moment's 
special  notice.  Among  the  Warramunga  there  is  a  totem  an- 
cestor who,  unlike  what  has  happened  with  every  other  totem 
ancestor  except  the  laughing-boy  (who  is  the  echo?),  has  act- 
ually persisted  from  the  Wingara  to  the  present  day.*-  This 
peculiar  ancestor  is  believed  to  be  a  monstrous  snake,  and  is 
called  Wollunqua.  "The  Wollunqua,"  say  our  authors,  "is 
regarded  as  a  huge  beast,  so  large  that,  if  it  were  to  stand  up 


80  See  above,  pp.  88-90. 

81  N.  T.2,  Chap.  VII. 

82  N.  T.2,  226. 


164  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABVELLOUS. 

on  its  tail,  its  head  would  reach  i'ar  away  into  the  heavens.  It 
lives  now  in  a  large  water-hole  called  Thapauerlu,  hidden  away 
in  a  lonely  valley  amongst  the  Murehison  Range,  and  there  is 
alwa^■s  the  fear  that  it  may  take  into  its  head  to  come  out  of 
its  hiding-place  and  do  some  damage.  It  has  already  been 
known,  apparently  for  no  particular  reason,  to  destroy  a  num- 
ber of  natives,  though  on  one  occasion,  when  attacked,  the  men 
were  able  to  drive  it  off.  Some  idea  of  what  the  natives  feel 
in  regard  to  the  mythic  animal — though  it  must  be  remembered 
that  it  is  anything  but  mythic  in  the  eyes  of  the  native — may 
be  gathered  from  the  fact  that,  instead  of  using  the  name  Wol- 
lunqua,  when  speaking  of  it  amongst  themselves,  they  call  it 
urkulu  imppaurinnia,  because,  so  they  told  us,  if  they  were  to 
call  it  too  often  by  its  real  name  they  would  lose  their  control 
over  it  and  it  would  come  out  and  eat  them  all  up."^^ 

It  has  been  thought  wise  to  mention  particularly  this  Wol- 
lunqua,  not  because  of  its  exaggeration  of  size,  or  its  evident 
sanctity,  or  its  wholly  animal  nature®* — any  one  of  these  would 
render  it  remarkable,  and  the  first  at  least,  its  size,  would  en- 
title it  to  a  place  in  wonder — but  because  all  these  characteristics 
appear  in  their  extraordinary  vividness  to  be  the  result  of  bring- 
ing the  remote  home  to  the  present.  We  have  before  this 
insisted  that  remoteness  of  the  Avonderful  is  not  calculated 
to  keep  the  heart  thrilling  with  wonder.®^  Here,  in  the  con- 
trast between  the  more  sober  regard  with  which  the  ordinary 
totemic  ancestor  is  contemplated  and  the  striking  concern  dis- 
played toward  the  Wollunqua,  may  be  detected  a  fair  example 
of  that  observation.  This  affluence  of  wonder,  again,  would  in 
all  probability  be  the  fortune  of  every  totemic  ancestor  could 
they  all  be  conceived  as  still  living.  The  constant  insistence 
upon  the  Wollunqua 's  stupendous  length,  as,  for  instance,  that 
after  traveling  underground  many,  many  miles  his  tail  was 
still  in  its  original  resting  place;  the  uniqueness  of  his  position, 
inasmuch  as  this  great  progenitor  is  supposed  to  be  the  only 
surviving  animal  of  his  kind;  the  fearful  approach  to  the  mys- 


83  N.  T.2,  227. 

84  N.  T.2,  493. 

8'>See  above,  pp.  123-124. 


WONDER  IN  CENTRAL  A  USTRALIAN  BELIEF  AND  STORY.     165 

terious  pool  where  he  dwells, — all  these  are  details  that  lift 
the  WoUunqua  into  a  place  of  notability  in  wonder  as  com- 
pared with  the  founders  of  other  totems.  A  present  god,  as  it 
were,-  is  indeed  a  greater  marvel  than  an  absent  one ! 

But  what  of  the  general  character  of  these  legends  as  a 
whole?  In  answering  this  question  it  is  possible  to  speak  of 
the  totem  legends  collected  in  Spencer  and  Gillen's  first  volume 
as  well  as  of  those  in  the  second ;  for  the  details  that  make 
up  the  tales  of  the  first  collection  are  practically  identical  with 
those  of  the  second,  which  we  have  just  discussed.  Upon  look- 
ing over  these  collections  for  the  first  time,  the  prevailing  im- 
pression is  one  of  sameness.  Tale  after  tale  repeats  the  same 
formula, — the  same  material  and  the  same  handling;  so  that 
reading  one  legend  is  equivalent  to  reading  twenty.  And  yet, 
upon  a  somewhat  closer  examination,  it  is  found  that  in  pro- 
portion to  the  variation  in  distribution  of  the  two  sorts  of 
details,  aitiological  and  'heroic',  the  general  character  of  the 
legends  varies  from  a  meagre  matter-of-fact  list  of  answers  to 
certain  questions  connected  with  the  totem,  on  the  one  hand,  to 
a  considerably  richer  exploitation  of  the  details  involved  in 
such  answers,  on  the  other  hand.  A  division  of  character  may 
thus  be  made  into  the  heroic  and  aitiological;  and  though  there 
may  occur  legends  where  the  exploitation  is  too  slight  to  admit 
of  definite  classification  under  one  or  the  other  head,  the  division 
will  nevertheless  be  of  real  value  in  the  greater  number  of  cases. 
One  caution,  however,  needs  mention.  It  may  be  that  the  dif- 
ference in  length  and  richness  of  interest  between  certain  of 
the  legends  is  due  rather  to  the  fulness  or  meagreness  of  the 
report  of  the  tale  than  to  the  original  recital.  Whether  this  be 
so  or  not,  or  where  it  is  so,  I  am  unable  to  tell.  This  ignorance 
is  all  the  more  distressing  in  view  of  a  still  stronger  induction 
that  may  be  made  if  the  tales  are  in  their  original  form. 
Until,  therefore,  further  light  is  shed  upon  the  question,  it  is 
necessary  to  restrain  our  conclusions  somewhat  tentatively  within 
as  modest  bounds  as  possible.  The  attempt  must  be  made  to 
state  them  in  such  fashion  that  they  will  not  be  invalidated  even 
if  the  lack  of  elaboration  in  many  of  the  legends  proves  to  be 


166  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

due  to  the  compression  of  the  reporters,  while  they  may  be 
strengthened  if  the  apparent  contrast  proves  a  real  one. 

Of  the  shorter,  or  more  strictly  aitiological  character,  the 
crow  legend  examined  above  is  an  example.  The  details  are 
exclusively  aitiological.  There  is  nothing  of  what  we  have 
termed  the  'heroic'  detail, — that  is,  traveling  underground,  or 
mounting  into  the  sky,  etc.  Questions  closely  connected  with 
the  tribe  and  totem  are  answered  with  no  pause  to  exaggerate 
the  power  or  importance  of  the  ancestor.  How  the  Unmatjera 
began,  why  a  certain  totemic  ancestor  was  a  crow,  how  the 
custom  of  circumcision  and  the  like  arose,  what  certain  peculiar 
stones  mean :  these  are  the  questions  answered.  Probably,  also, 
the  beforehand  action  of  the  two  old  Parthenie  lizard  men  ex- 
plains some  circumstance  of  the  Unmatjera  economy.  To  these 
questions  it  is  necessary  to  add  only  a  few  others  in  order  to 
possess  a  fairly  complete  list  of  the  aitiological  subjects  upon 
which  the  legends  exercise  themselves.  How  various  other  cus- 
toms arose,  how  the  different  totemic  ceremonies  originated, 
what  other  features  of  the  landscape  mean,  how  the  markings 
of  certain  animals  were  made:  these,  together  with  the  aitiolog- 
ical details  discussed  above  at  length,  give  a  good  idea  of  the 
common  motives  of  the  various  aitiological  legends.  Now,  it 
has  been  pointed  out  that  the  aitiological  detail  is  seldom,  if 
ever,  originally  felt  as  wonderful.  Only  much  later  generations, 
whose  keener  and  far  more  discriminating  and  reflective  obser- 
vation has  become  conscious  of  the  categories  of  natural  law 
and  strict  classifications  of  kind,  are  able  to  look  back  upon 
their  primitive  science  and,  through  ignorance  of  its  original 
character,  pronounce  it  wonder  and  delusion.  It  is  right,  then, 
to  assume  that  tales  which  are  composed  almost  exclusively  of 
such  'scientific'  details  are  not  as  a  whole  wonderful  to  the 
savage.  The  only  question  is  whether  we  actually  have  before 
us  legends  of  simple  and  unelaborated  character :  that  such 
tales  necessarily  precede  the  more  heroic  sort,  or  that  their  sim- 
plicity is  due  to  a  lower  rather  than  to  a  higher  development, 
are  points  that  in  the  absence  of  evidence  it  is  unfortunately 
impossible  to  determine.  But  to  whatever  circumstance,  or  set 
of  circumstances,  such  tales  are  due,  certain  it  is  that  tales  so 


WONDER  IN  CENTRAL  AUSTRALIAN  BELIEF  AND  STORY.     167 

predominantly  aitiological  are  essentially  devoid  of  the  wonder 
element  in  the  consciousness  of  those  who  make  and  rehearse 
them  with  an  implicit  belief  in  their  character  and  truth. 

The  longer  sort  of  legend,  where  the  ancestor  is  felt  more 
in  a  way  that  approximates,  at  least,  to  the  heroic  sentiment 
of  later  times,  and  where,  as  one  may  say,  the  ancestor  is  on 
the  road  to  become  a  hero,  must  be  illustrated  by  another  quota- 
tion from  the  collection.  Most  of  the  tales  of  this  heroic  sort 
are  rather  lengthy — three  or  four  times  as  long  as  the  crow  tale — 
and  the  full  realization  of  their  far  more  elaborate  character  can 
be  gained  only  from  the  longest.  One  that  falls  somewhat  short 
of  this  extreme  elaboration  must,  however,  do  service  here.  It 
is  the  legend  of 

PITTONGU,    THE    FLYING    FOX. 

* '  In  the  "Wingara,  Pittongu,  the  flying  fox,  a  Thapanunga  man,  arose 
in  the  country  away  to  the  north  of  the  Warramimga  and  travelled  south 
until  he  came  near  to  Altunga  in  the  eastern  Macdonnell  Eanges.  He  met 
a  number  of  black-fellows  who  had  lubrasss  with  them,  and  among  the 
latter  two  young  ones  whom  he  wanted  to  secure  as  wives  for  himself, 
though  one  of  them  was  Naralu  and  the  other  Nungalla,  and  therefore 
neither  of  them  his  proper  wife.  After  thinking  how  he  could  best  secure 
them — because  of  course  the  black-fellows  would  not  give  them  to  him  of 
their  own  accord — he  killed  a  bandicoot  and  put  some  of  the  blood  on  his 
foot  and  pretended  to  be  lame  and  so  unable  to  go  any  further.  The  men 
went  out  hunting,  leaving  the  women  in  the  main  camp,  and  the  stranger 
sat  down,  wondering  what  it  was  best  for  him  to  do  so  as  to  secure  the 
two  women.  Going  a  little  way  out  into  the  scrub,  so  as  to  be  out  of  sight, 
he  changed  himself  into  a  dog  and  then  came  back  again  to  the  women's 
camp.  All  of  them  were  there  except  the  two  younger  ones,  who  happened 
to  be  out  hunting  in  the  bush,  and  when  they  saw  him  the  old  women  said, 
'  Hullo,  here  is  a  big  dog  coming  up ',  and  they  called  to  it,  but  the  dog 
would  not  come  near  them  and  only  snarled,  so  they  left  it  alone.  At 
dusk  the  two  younger  ones  returned,  and  the  dog  at  once  went  up  to 
them  wagging  his  tail  and  playing  about  them.  The  two  said,  'This  is 
a  very  good  dog  for  us  to  hunt  with',  and  it  stayed  with  them.  They 
tried  next  day  to  go  in  several  directions,  but  each  time  the  dog  stopped 
and  refused  to  go  on,  until  at  length  they  directed  their  steps  towards  the 
north,  from  which  direction  the  man  had  come,  and  then  the  dog  walked 
along  with  them.  The  dog  went  in  the  lead,  rounding  up  the  wallabies, 
the  lubras  following  up  behind.  It  drove  the  animals  into  holes,  the  mouth 
[sic'l  of  which  it  then  filled  up  with  stones.  At  length  the  dog  went  on 
ahead,  right  out  of  sight  of  the  women,   and   changed  itself  back  into   a 


80  Consorts. 


168  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

man.  He  returned  to  search  for  his  spears  and  boomerangs,  which  ho  had 
secreted  in  the  scrub.  The  lubras  meanwhile  came  up  and  caught  a  large 
number  of  the  wallabies,  but  were  much  surprised  not  to  see  any  trace  of 
the  dog.  Seeing  the  black-fellow  approaching,  they  were  frightened,  but  he 
said  to  them,  'Why  are  you  frightened?  I  made  the  wallabies  go  into 
the  holes. '  Then  he  said,  '  We  will  walk  along  my  country  now ',  but  the 
women  declined  to  go  with  him.  However,  taking  his  spear-thrower, 
he  tangled  their  hairs  together  and  threw  them  on  a  long  way  ahead  of 
himself  to  a  place  called  Athalta,  where  he  halted  for  a  time  and  where, 
for  the  purpose  of  making  himself  better  looking,  he  knocked  out  a  tooth. 
Then  he  camped  close  by  Thapauerlu,  the  home  of  the  Wollunqua,  and 
there  he  pulled  out  another  tooth.  He  was  the  first  man  to  knock  teeth 
out,  and  he  did  so  because  he  wanted  the  lubras  to  think  him  good-looking. 
He  carried  with  him  mauia  (e\'il  magic),  spears,  tomahawks,  stone  knives, 
and  various  other  implements.  All  the  way  as  he  travelled  across  the 
country  he  left  spirit  children  behind  him  and  threw  the  two  lubras  on 
ahead.  From  what  is  now  known  as  the  Elsey  Creek  he  threw  them  on 
as  far  as  Pine  Creek,  and  there  he  finally  left  them  and  went  up  into  the 
sky.  A  mob  of  black-fellows  saw  him  coming  and  threw  their  boomerangs 
with  their  right  hands,  hoping  to  kill  him,  but  could  not  touch  him.  Then 
they  threw  with  their  left  hand  and  he  fell  down.  As  he  fell  they  shouted 
out,  'Don't  drop  this  way;  drop  with  your  head  looking  towards  the  Warra- 
munga. '  Accordingly  he  did  so,  and  his  legs  stretched  out  right  beyond  Pine 
Creek.  When  he  passed  over  the  Warramunga  country  he  dropped  stone 
axes,  which  is  why  the  natives  of  these  parts  are  specially  good  at  making 
the  axes;  in  the  same  way  he  dropped  stone-knives  in  the  Tjingilli  country, 
which  is  why  the  Tjingilli  men  now  make  the  best  knives,  and  then  away 
to  the  north,  he  dropped  barbed  spears  in  the  country  where  these  are 
now  made. '  's^ 

Now  this  recital  combines  in  a  most  interesting  fashion  the 
short  aitiological  information-tale  and  the  elaborated  heroic 
legend.  The  second  half  is  mostly  aitiological,  and  quite  simply  so ; 
the  first  half  is  almost  entirely  heroic,  and  very  richly  so.  The  con- 
trast between  the  two  halves,  or  between  the  first  half  and  the  crow 
tale,  speaks  for  itself.  In  this  first  half,  the  suspense  of  denoue- 
ment gained  by  meticulous  detail,  the  suggestion  of  character, 
and  the  thrilling  climax — or,  in  a  word,  the  sense  for  story  dis- 
played— immediately  lift  us  into  the  realm  of  narrative  interest. 
Here  is  no  mere  answering  of  questions.  Here  is  an  adventure, 
well  told,  appealing  to  human  instincts,  resting  its  power  on 
its  appeal  to  human  emotions.  Here  is  that  exaggeration  of  the 
hero's  cunning,  of  his  patience,  of  his  power,  that  characterizes 
the  art  of  the  story-teller.     Here,  to  be  brief,  is  the  beginning 


87  N.  T.2,  427-428;   for  other  'heroic'  tales,  see  pp.  396,  405,  409,  424, 
431,  435,  445,  451. 


WONDER  IN  CENTEAL  A  USTEALIAN  BELIEF  AND  STOEY.     169 

of  the  tale  par  excellence,  the  real  home  of  marvel,  that  distinc- 
tive region  where  thrives  most  strongly  that  marvel  which  is 
born  of  the  teller's  desire  to  thrill  and  the  listener's  desire  to 
be  thrilled.  And  as  it  was  predicted  above  that  the  marvellous 
would  find  its  emphatic  beginning  with  the  'telling'  that  passes 
later  into  literature  and  literary  fiction,^^  so  we  here  find  that 
particular  sort  of  detail  which  among  the  mass  examined  has  ap- 
peared most  inclined  toward  the  wonderful — the  'heroic'  detail 
as  we  have  called  it — making  its  appearance  contemporaneously 
with  the  evidence  of  the  beginning  of  the  elaboration  of  an 
art  of  'telling.'  The  aitiological  detail  is  evidently  expanded. 
The  ancestor  has  an  adventure  in  procuring  his  wives.  He  has 
all  the  heroic  powers  examined  elsewhere,  and  others  in  addition. 
They  can  hardly  be  added  by  mere  chance  to  the  aitiological 
elements.  There  is  no  need  for  them  as  causes  for  anything.  They 
make  for  interest,  for  story.  They  are  exaggerations  that  hold 
the  wonder.  His  power  of  transforming  himself  into  a  dog  is 
a  rarity  in  the  collection;  it  is  also  a  rarity  in  the  life  of  the 
Central  Australian  to-day.  Only  the  great  and  wonderful  magi- 
cian can  accomplish  such  a  feat.  Again,  Pittongu's  power  of 
throwing  the  two  lubras  ahead  of  him  is  a  strictly  individual 
touch ;  and  the  very  dwelling  upon  it,  the  repetition  and  careful 
dwelling  upon  it  even  to  the  point  of  localizing  the  extraordinary 
feat,  all  bespeak  a  lively  sense  of  rarity,  of  a  perdurable  wonder, 
almost  of  a  marvel.  Almost  of  a  marvel:  for  the  information 
as  to  the  exact  distance  he  threw  them,  from  Elsey  to  Pine  Creek, 
seems,  in  part  at  least,  to  be  motived  by  a  very  vivid  sense  of 
present-day  impossibility.  Then,  too,  the  mighty  extension  of  the 
hero's  fall,  the  almost  Miltonic  picture  of  his  giant  limbs  resting 
upon  the  country,  as  Satan's  rested  upon  the  sea  of  fire,  is  a 
further  note  of  strong  exaggeration.  If  there  were  time,  other 
heroic  details  from  some  of  the  other  legends  might  be  described 
side  by  side  with  these.  The  m3'sterious,  fearful,  and  secret 
Kurdaitcha  men,  who  play  a  part  half  villain,  half  bogey;  the 
mischievous  Oruntja-spirits;  the  growling  hearts,  which  oddly 
remind  the  reader  of  one  of  Poe  's  marvellous  tales ;  another  tre- 
mendous snake,  whose  head,  like  the  Wollunqua's,  can  reach  up 
into  the  sky :  these  can  only  be  mentioned  here  as  strengthening 


88  See  above,  p.  74. 


170  STUDIES  IN  THE  MAEVELLOUS. 

the  present  contention  that  with  the  development  of  a  sense  for 
story  there  is  the  addition  of  exaggerated  and  wonderful  details. 

Upon  this  point  of  the  present  inquiry,  then,  the  finger  of 
emphasis  must  be  placed  with  determination.  To  be  sure,  even 
the  most  elaborate  of  these  tales  is,  judged  by  modern  standards, 
elaborated  very  meagerly;  and  one  is  impressed  far  more  by  a 
stock  sameness  of  detail,  and  almost  cast-iron  tradition  of  form- 
ula, than  by  any  evidence  of  a  free,  plastic  imagination.  And 
yet  there  is  elaboration,  beyond  the  aitiological  'science'  of  prim- 
itive life,  into  a  sort  of  wonder;  there  is  a  lifting  up  of  emotion 
and  imagination  into  'story-interest.'  Thus  comes  into  light  a 
faint  beginning  of  the  marvellous  of  literature  proper. 

We  have  traveled  a  long  way  in  order  to  gain  a  careful  ap- 
proach to  this  faint  beginning,  and  fully  as  much  attention  has 
been  paid  to  what  is  not  wonderful  to  primitive  consciousness 
as  to  what  is.  Nay,  more  space  has  been  given  to  the  negative 
side ;  because  we  conceive  that  the  first  and  most  important  step 
in  the  present  research  is  to  show  how  elements  which  in  a  later 
age  and  developed  literature  come  to  be  regarded  as  wonders, 
originated  without  any  aroma  of  thaumaturgy.  But  here  at  least 
there  is  marked  a  positive  stage  in  the  course  of  conscious  wonder, 
— an  initial  stage,  but  nevertheless  unmistakable,  starting  out 
(we  see  it  in  the  very  act  of  development)  from  the  non-wonder- 
ful aitiology  of  a  narrow  consciousness,  advancing  with  an 
exaggeration  of  familiar  elements,  gathering  impetus  with  the 
addition  of  further  heroic  elements,  and  culminating  in  a 
realism  of  action  and  detail  by  which  exaggeration  magnifies 
the  past  and  its  great  characters,  and  brings  home  for  a  moment 
to  the  mind  of  the  listener  the  wonders  of  a  remote  Alcheringa. 
Thus,  in  connection  with  the  most  important  social  phenomenon 
of  the  Central  Australian,  the  totem,  we  gain  our  first  positive, 
empirical  result  in  the  study  of  the  marvellous.*" 


soother  tales  not  directly  connected  with  the  totems — 'myths'  as  Spen- 
cer and  Gillen  call  them — tales  of  the  sun,  moon,  stars,  rainbow,  whirlwind, 
and  the  like,  aro  nevertheless  made  up  so  closely  after  the  pattern  of  the 
regular  totem  legends  that  it  is  quite  unnecessary  to  consider  them  sepa- 
rately. The  only  point  to  be  emphasized  is  that  amongst  this  primitive 
people  there  is  as  yet  no  difference  of  treatment  of  wonder  or  jtre-marvel- 
lous  elements  as  they  pass  from  social  and  ancestral  legends  to  the  contem- 
plation and  explanation  of  the  greater  and  more  remote  features  of  nature. 
These  so-called  myths  are  very  few  in  number,  and  may  be  found  in  Chapter 
XVTII  of  the  first,  and  Chapter  XXII  of  the  second  volume  of  Spencer  and 
Gillen. 


CHAPTER  V. 

CONCLUSION. 

In  the  preceding  chapters  an  essay  has  been  made  toward 
uncovering  the  sources  and  the  rise  of  the  marvellous  in  litera- 
ture. Throughout  those  chapters  we  have  been  looking  always 
forward  to  the  stage  where  literature  would  begin  to  take  up 
into  itself  and  transform  the  elements  of  experience,  custom, 
and  belief;  the  point  of  view  has  been  from  non-literary  begin- 
nings toward  literary  inceptions,  rather  than  the  reverse.  But, 
now  that  the  first  stage  in  the  inquiry  has  been  completed  by 
the  survey  of  the  sources  in  primitive  custom  and  belief,  and 
the  rise  therefrom  of  wonders  into  that  first  faint  dawn  of  nar- 
rative literature,  the  semi-heroic  tale,  it  is  proper  to  pause  and 
from  our  present  vantage  look  backward  over  the  fields  that 
have  been  traversed.  Thus  the  actual  results  for  literature  may 
be  rescued  from  the  mass  of  psychological  and  ethnological 
detail  and  set  clearly  and  emphatically  before  the  literary  stu- 
dent. 

In  taking  such  a  retrospect  it  immediately  becomes  evident 
that  the  progress  toward  these  faint  literary  beginnings  of 
the  marvellous  has  been  through  a  series  of  narrowing  circles ; 
and,  furthermore,  that  each  of  these  circles  has  revealed  the 
marvellous  in  a  characteristic  aspect.  From  the  historical  view 
of  Greek  criticism  of  fiction  and  marvel  it  soon  became  evident 
that  literary  criticism  itself  was  originally  a  development  from 
the  moral  and  philosophical  criticism  of  the  wonders  and  mar- 
vels that  the  Greeks  had  inherited,  through  their  myths,  from 
the  unphilosophical  and  uncritical  days  of  their  remote  begin- 
nings. There,  indeed,  we  saw  what  Dr.  Tylor  so  eloquently 
refers  to  as  that  "momentous  phase  of  the  education  of  man- 
kind, when  the  regularity  of  nature  has  so  imprinted  itself  upon 
men 's  minds  that  they  begin  to  wonder  how  it  is  that  the  ancient 
legends  which  they  were  brought  up  to  hear  with  such  reverend 


172  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

delight,  should  describe  a  world  so  strangely  different  from 
their  own.  Why,  they  ask,  are  the  gods  and  giants  and  monsters 
no  longer  seen  to  lead  their  prodigious  lives  on  earth — is  it  per- 
chance that  the  course  of  things  is  changed  since  the  old  days  ? '  '^ 
In  that  stage  men  wondered  at  the  wonderful,  marvelled  at  the 
marvellous.  And  in  their  earnestness  they  came  to  take  into 
questioning  consideration  not  only  the  more  striking  and  offen- 
sive of  the  old  wonders,  but  the  whole  field  of  fiction  as  well. 
Graduall}^  very  gradually,  they  passed  from  the  first  severe 
denunciations  of  impious  fiction,  through  the  steps  of  rationaliza- 
tion, allegory,  euhemerism,  and  the  like,  to  a  proper  literary 
criticism  that  was  divorced  from  the  moral  and  philosophical 
view,  and  could  contemplate  the  marvellous  in  literature  under 
that  imaginative  light  which  is  the  true  and  distinguishing 
character  of  the  realm  of  literary  art.  Thus,  finally,  a  new  view 
— what  might  also  be  called  the  modern  view — the  view  of  poetic 
truth  and  artistic  illusion — came  into  being;  and  the  marvellous 
entered  into  a  new  stage, — that  of  aesthetic  development. 

The  second  circle  of  our  inquiry  was  somewhat  narrower ;  for 
it  embraced,  not  the  general  field  of  the  criticism  of  wonder, 
but  the  more  particular  question,  how  do  men  wonder,  or,  what 
is  wondering  psychologically  speaking?  Here  an  examination 
was  made  of  the  processes  that  had  been  tacitly  subsumed  in 
the  first  field  by  the  criticism  of  their  results.  And  once  again 
a  character  of  the  marvellous  was  brought  to  light.  In  the 
course  of  a  description  of  the  complex  nature  of  wonder,  it 
grew  clear  that  as  wonder  ascends  in  power  and  intensity  it 
passes  through  an  ascending  series  of  rarities  and  improbabil- 
ities, until,  reaching  a  culmination  in  impossibility,  it  is  fitly 
called  marvelling.  Moreover,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  in  im- 
aginative literature,  the  home  of  exaggeration,  there  has  always 
existed  a  standard  of  ideal  possibility,  whereby  the  impossible 
ceases  from  being  absolutely  and  prosaically  impossible,  it  was 
immediately  apparent  that  in  literature  this  marvelling  finds 
its  peculiarly  appropriate  sustenance  and  field  of  activity.  Relig- 
ion, with  its  aspects  of  faith  and  superstition,  offers  a  similar 


1  Primitive  Culture,  I,  275. 


CONCLUSION.  173 

field  and  support.  Hence  the  naturalness,  not  to  say  the  inevi- 
tability, of  the  close  association  between  literature  and  religion 
in  the  matter  of  the  marvellous.  Here  there  was  a  recognition 
that  the  marvellous  would  find  its  place  in  literature,  and  thrive 
there  under  the  fostering  guidance  of  religious  faith  and  super- 
stition, long  before  it  would  be  ready  to  enter  upon  its  aesthetic 
development  under  the  tutelage  of  a  properly  emancipated  liter- 
ary criticism. 

Armed  with  the  subjective  criteria  gained  from  this  field, 
primitive  mind,  custom,  and  belief,  and  the  relations  between 
literature,  religion,  and  the  marvellous,  were  contemplated  in 
their  simplest  possible  manifestations.  Two  great  facts  made 
their  appearance.  In  the  first  place,  it  was  recognized  that,  in 
a  vast  number  of  cases,  what  is  wonderful  or  marvellous  to  the 
minds  of  later  generations  was  simple  fact  to  the  primitive  con- 
sciousness. To  understand,  therefore,  the  marvellous  elements 
in  literature,  it  became  necessary  to  determine  so  far  as  possible 
what  marvels  were  wonderful,  and  what  not  wonderful,  to  the 
primitive  mind.  This  meant  an  examination  not  only  of  the 
character  of  early  mind,  but  also  of  the  sources  of  marvel- 
elements  in  early  custom  and  belief.  Such  an  examination 
brought  out  the  second  significant  fact, — viz.,  that  there  can  be 
distinguished  more  or  less  clearly  two  tendencies — one  making 
against  wonder,  the  other  for  it — which  run  through  many  prim- 
itive customs  and  the  original  mental  attitudes  toward  them. 
The  more  primitive  the  people,  the  greater  the  former  tendency ; 
the  less  primitive,  the  greater  the  latter.  Moreover,  the  latter 
tendency  was  seen  to  be  characterized  by  the  principles  of  segre- 
gation and  individualization,  whereby  details  and  powers  are 
differentiated  from  the  communal  mass.  Gods  and  priests,  magi- 
cians and  magic  as  'magical,'  and  the  custom  of  taboo,  were 
seen  to  illustrate  this  tendency.  But  underlying  all  these,  and 
the  entire  tendency,  was  the  mental  trick  of  exaggeration,  often 
joined  with  deceit.  Through  exaggeration  the  tendency  to  wonder 
was  abetted;  through  it,  details  which  were  not  originally  and 
distinctly  felt  as  wonderful  became  wonderful.  But  exaggera- 
tion is  primarily  a  matter  of  'telling,'  of  rehearsing.  It  is 
mind  and  mouth  that  lend  exaggeration  to  a  matter;  the  tale 


174  STUDIES  IN  THE  MARVELLOUS. 

spring's  spontaneously  from  the  lips  of  the  exaggerator.  Thus, 
in  this  field  also,  literature,  or  at  least  its  faint  beginning,  was 
seen  to  be  peculiarly  bound  up  with  wonder.  And  the  greater 
the  exaggeration,  the  more  of  a  wonder.  As  in  the  history  of 
criticism  the  marvellous  was  seen  to  be  closely  related  to  the 
beginnings  of  that  discipline,  so  here,  with  the  beginnings  of 
'narative'  literature,  wonder  is  woven  into  the  fabric  of  the 
tale  by  the  very  exaggerating  force  that  contributes  so  largely  to 
its  origin. 

The  last  and  narrowest  of  our  circles  took'  us  from  the  gen- 
eral field  of  primitive  mind  to  the  particular  field  of  the  beliefs, 
customs,  and  legends  of  one  of  the  most  primitive  of  existing 
races,  the  Central  Australians.  Guided  by  the  sense  of  direction 
gained  in  exploring  the  larger  field,  and  supported  by  the  de- 
scriptive criteria  of  the  previous  chapter  but  one,  it  was  not 
difficult  to  detect  among  this  people  illustrations  of  our  general 
observation  that  many  a  wonder  element,  recognized  as  such 
to-day,  was  plain  matter-of-fact  to  the  savage.  Many  such  ele- 
ments were  named,  and  their  origin  briefly  suggested,  so  that 
at  some  other  time  their  progress  to  wonder  through  later  de- 
velopment may  be  fitly  observed.  It  is  not  claimed  that  any- 
thing like  entire  success  has  been  achieved  in  the  difficult  task 
of  differentiating  among  these  primitive  tribes  the  details  that 
are  wonderful  from  those  that  are  not  wonderful.  The  most 
that  could  be  done  in  this  first  sketch  of  the  situation,  limited 
as  we  are  by  an  insufficiency  of  direct  evidence,  as  well  as  by 
the  novelty  of  the  attempt,  was  to  make  clear  the  general  truth 
of  our  conclusions  by  such  a  fulness  of  detail  that  a  mistake  in 
the  judgment  of  a  single  detail  here  and  there  would  not  invali- 
date the  entire  argument.  It  was  in  following  up  the  first  posi- 
tive step  in  the  exploitation  of  wonder  that  we  were  brought  to 
the  particular  character  of  the  marvellous  that  this  chapter  had 
to  offer.  The  particular  case  of  actual  legends  concerning  the 
ancestors  of  these  Australians  proved  the  accuracy  of  the  general 
observ^ation  upon  the  relation  of  literature  and  marvel  which 
was  developed  in  the  preceding  chapter.  Here,  indeed,  was  de- 
tected a  simultaneous  and  associated  growth  of  wonder  and  the 
hero-tale  from  the  religio-scientific  details  of  the  aitiological  col- 


CONCLUSION.  175 

lections, — a  growth  that  in  either  ease  was  motived  by  the  force 
of  a  natural  exaggeration.  This  exaggeration  was  evident  both 
in  its  wonder-making  influence  upon  elements  of  custom  and 
belief,  which  originally  were  matters  of  fact,  and  also  in  its 
creation  of  certain  so-called  'heroic'  details  out  of  the  fund  of 
general  experience.  Thus  the  hero-tale,  bred  from  what  might 
be  called  an  aitiological  ancestor  (even  if  he  were  a  real  an-  "^ 
cestor  the  term  might  be  retained),  and  forming  the  beginning 
of  a  narrative  literature,  comes  to  take  its  place  as  aiding  the 
tendency  toward  wonder  by  accommodating  it  with  a  natural 
field  for  its  activity.  Such  an  alliance  is  bound  to  produce  the 
higher  reaches  of  wonder  in  a  comparatively  short  time. 
Finally,  it  should  be  emphasized  again  that  the  first  step  into 
'literature'  was  taken  through  the  agency  of  a  social  institution, 
the  totem.  Further  research  into  the  subsequent  stages  of  the 
development  of  the  marvellous  in  literature  must  take  this  fact 
as  a  cue  to  the  perdurably  social  aspect  of  the  question. 

Our  four  circles  of  progress  have  thus  each  shown  a  peculiar 
affinity  between  the  marvellous  and  literature.  The  discussion 
of  the  psychological  aspect  of  the  question  adequately  showed 
the  reason  for  this  affinity.  Briefly,  in  a  w'ord,  it  may  be  said 
that  both  are  all  compacted  of  imagination;  and  that  the  latter, 
literature,  offers  the  most  natural  playground  to  the  former. 
It  would  be  easy  here  to  wax  philosophical  and  attempt  to  raise 
a  theory  upon  the  inter-relations  of  religion,  literature,  and  mar- 
vel,— a  theory  that  would  have  as  much  bearing  upon  later  and 
even  present-day  cycles  of  thought  and  expression  as  upon  the 
epoch  of  beginnings.  I  believe  that  in  such  a  system  the  mar- 
vellous would  furnish  the  connecting  link  or  common  element; 
and  that  the  better  understanding  of  its  glamor  would  tend  as 
much  to  emancipate  the  faith  of  religion  as  to  inspire  a  new 
and  more  spiritual  romanticism.  The  marvellous  has  given  the 
romantic  tone  to  both  religion  and  literature ;  the  analysis  of  that 
tone,  which  after  all  is  the  purpose  of  these  studies,  would, 
if  brought  home  to  the  minds  and  hearts  of  a  race,  mean  a  new 
day  of  creation,  springing  with  brighter  and  whiter  light  from 
the  old  barbaric  days  of  gloom  and  mystery. 

But  no  such  theory  is  to  be  traced  here.    Instead,  the  remark 


176  STUDIES  IN  THE  MABFELLOUS. 

may  be  hazarded  that  the  peculiarly  intimate  relation  between 
literature  and  wonder  pointed  out  in  this  tentative  essay  has 
never  been  sufficiently  contemplated.  Ever.y  romantic  epoch 
brings  round  sufficient  evidence  of  the  reality  of  the  relation, 
and  ample  guarantee  for  the  dignity  of  a  careful  examination 
into  its  nature  and  origin.  The  present  advances  in  psychology  are 
helping  to  minimize  the  subjective  difficulties  of  the  subject,  and 
the  nearer  to  national  literatures  the  study  advances,  the  greater 
the  amount  of  direct  evidence;  modern  ethnological  research  is 
daily  increasing  the  data  of  the  remoter  reaches  of  the  problem ; 
the  freedom  of  criticism  in  the  present,  together  with  its  wealth 
of  apparatus,  offers  an  opportunity  of  dispassionate,  if  not 
exhaustive,  study  such  as  seldom  before  has  been  extended  to 
the  scholar.  On  the  other  hand,  the  advantages  to  the  theory 
and  history  of  literature  would  surely  not  be  inconsiderable. 
The  examination  should  be  extended  through  other  culture- 
grades  of  savage  and  barbaric  races ;  the  development  into  won- 
der of  the  aitiological  details  should  be  noted,  classified,  and 
explained;  the  creation  of  new  wonders  through  individual 
exaggeration  of  elements  of  thought  and  experience,  should  be 
considered  in  conjunction  with  the  rise  of  new  economic  condi- 
tions as  they  affect  the  increasing  significance  of  the  individual 
in  society;  the  characteristic  variations  in  the  wonder  elements 
should  be  examined,  and  their  treatment  should  be  traced  as  they 
pass  from  ancestor-tale  and  legend  to  myth,  from  myth  and 
legend  to  the  self-conscious  literary  art  of  the  epic,  from  early 
epic  to  other  types — tragedy,  comedy,  satire,  novel — in  their  later 
development:  all  the  course  of  characteristic  variations  under 
these  changes  of  circumstances  should  be  noted  and  correlated 
with  the  passing  of  one  literary  epoch  after  another.  "What  a 
field  is  opened  in  the  European  Middle  Ages !  What  a  contrast 
in  the  recurring  successions  of  creative  and  critical  periods ! 
Nor  would  the  least  fascinating  aspect  of  the  subject  lie  in  an 
exploration  of  oriental  marvel-literature  and  its  comparison  with 
occidental  wonder. 


INDEX. 


INTKODUCTION. 

PAGE 

Iktboduction  3 

The  marvellous  in  Eomance — Its  profusion,  and  recurrent 
character — Its  neglect  by  literary  criticism — Aristotle — Desul- 
tory and  fragmentary  nature  of  wonder-criticism  after 
Aristotle — Data  furnished  by  the  ethnologists — The  opportunity 
for  a  criticism  of  the  marvellous — Purpose  and  plan  of  the 
present  work — History  of  the  usage  of  the  term  ' '  marvellous ' ' 
— as  an  intensive — as  denoting  the  supernatural — in  other 
languages — Suggestiveness  of  these  usages. 

CHAPTER    I. 

Greek  Cbiticism  of  Fiction  axd  Makvel  14 

Outline  of  method — The  philosophical  doubt:  (a)  the 
earlier  expostulation  with  myth;  (b)  Pindar  and  the  'Charis 
Doctrine';  (c)  Xenophanes;  (d)  Empedocles;  (e)  Plato — 
Philosophical  attempts  to  explain  the  mar^-el  in  myth:  (o)  the 
allegorists;  (fc)  Euhemerism — The  beginnings  of  literary  criti- 
cism proper:  (a)  Aristotle;  (ft)  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus ; 
(c)  'Demetrius';  (d)  Plutarch;  (e)  'Longinus' — Minor  phil- 
osophers, rhetoricians,  etc. — Conclusion:    eight  general  points. 

CHAPTEE    II. 

The  Psychoi-ogy  of  Woxder  _    52 

Inadequacy  of  previous  descriptions  of  wonder — States 
allied  to  wonder:  (1)  surprise,  astonishment,  and  curiosity; 
(a)  surprise  differentiated  logically,  as  in  sudden  and  unusual 
experiences;  (6)  surprise  differentiated  physiologically,  as  in 
short  and  long  "circuits";  (c)  passing  of  surprise  [through 
astonishment,  at  times]  to  curiosity  and  wonder;  (d)  relations 
of  curiosity,  explanation,  and  wonder;   (e)  six  tj'pical  cases; 

(f)  differentiation  of  the  improbable  and  the  impossible,  and 
their  relations  to  wonder  and  marvel  and  to  the  six  typical  cases; 

(g)  the  marvellous:  (2)  belief  and  wonder;  (a)  definition; 
(6)  degree  of  belief  consonant  with  wonder;  (c)  the  ridicu- 
lous; (d)  belief  and  the  standard  of  ideal  possibility:  (3) 
imagination  and  the  marvellous:  (4)  fear  and  marvel:  (5) 
pleasure  and  marvel. — Summary. 


CHAPTER    TIL 

PAGE 

WoNDEK  IN  Primitive  Mind,  Custom,  and  Belief 93 

What  is  wonderful  to  the  primitive? — Difficulties  in 
answering — Subjective  difficulty — Unreliability  of  data — 
General  description  of  primitive  mind,  custom,  and  belief 
— Preliminary  difficulties  and  objections — Vierkandt's  pic- 
ture of  primitive  mind  and  belief — Points,  in  primitive 
conditions,  making  against  wonder:  (a)  no  conception  of 
unexceptional  regularity;  (b)  matter-of-fact  character  of 
belief  in  spirits  who  cause  rarities;  (c)  no  impossibility 
possible  to  primitive  consciousness;  (d)  primitive  curi- 
osity not  favorable  to  wonder;  (e)  primitive  belief  and 
imagination  not  favorable  to  wonder;  (f)  magic  as  'scien- 
tific'; (g)  animism — Points,  in  primitive  conditions,  making 
for  wonder:  (a)  segregated  nature  of  gods;  (b)  of  priest; 
(c)  of  magician;  (d)  of  magic  as  'magical';  (e)  of  taboo; 
(/■)  exaggeration — Summary. 

CHAPTER    IV. 

Wonder  in  Central  Australian  Belief  and  Story  135 

Discussion  of  sources — General  cultural  conditions  of  Cen- 
tral Australians ;  identity  among  tribes ;  low  stage  of  culture 
— In  such  a  stage  the  forces  against  wonder  strongly  present 
— More  important  to  regard  the  forces  making  for  wonder — 
General  crowd  of  spirits  not  wonderful  to  natives — Particular 
spirits  and  wonder — No  gods — Other  particular  spirits — Magi- 
cian and  wonder;  segregation  and  initiation;  extraordinary 
powers;  deceit;  exaggeration — Totemic  traditions  and  legends 
— Heroic  and  aitiological  legends — Wonder  in  the  heroic — 
Combination  of  animal  and  human  characteristics — The  inmin- 
tera,  Churinga,  and  Wollunqua — Character  of  the  legends  as  a 
whole — The  beginning  of  wonder  in  literature — Summary :  the 
relation  between  the  beginnings  of  wonder  and  of  literature. 

CONCLUSION. 
Conclusion   171 


ERRATA. 

Page  40:  Note  91  should  read,  See  above,  pp.  33-34. 
Page  41:  Note  96  should  read,  See  above,  p.  34. 
Page  44:  Note  110  should  read,  See  above,  p.  43. 
Page  45:  Note  116  should  read,  See  above,  p.  43. 
Page  45:  Note  118  should  read,  See  above,  p.  42. 
Page  57:  Note  20  should  read.  See  above,  p.  52,  note  3. 
Page  57:  Note  21  should  read.  See  above,  p.  55,  note  14. 
Page  59,  line  4:  Read  that  is,  instead  of  that,  is. 
Page  97:  Line  16  should  follow  after  line  22. 
Page  103,  note  28,  line  3:  Read  experiential. 


J.  < 


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